From a scavenger to a gold medal Bokator fighter

Mr. Tep Samphors Reatrey with his gold medal, at National Khmer Martial Art Tournament 2013

While modelling and explaining Bokator (Khmer Martial Art) lesson to more than twenty students in a French orphanage (Pour un Sourire d’Enfant), Mr. Tep Samphors Reatrey turned to cameras and gave a smile to foreigners who came by and took photo. Then he continued coaching the students by altering some faulty positions. 

In the age of 21, Reatrey is currently a Bokator coach assistant in Pour un Sourire d’Enfant orphanage located in Phnom Penh city. He does not have any  permanent job neither exact place to stay. He is living under pagoda’s roof and having meals under the support from the Orphanage. His father is a moto-taxi-driver and his mother is a scavenger, they divorced when Reatrey was 12 years old. He has three sisters and a brother. His two younger sisters are now living with his mother. His elder sister got married and lives with her husband and his elder brother is living separately while working for one company.

After his parents divorced, he and his mother became scavengers striving for survival on Meanchey trash mountain. With the help of his neighbour, Reatrey and his brother were sent to PSE for education and food support in 2000.

A well-known orphanage “PSE - Pour un Sourire d’Enfant”, is a French apolitical and non-denominational organisation, that has aim of coming to the aid of deprived children since 1996, to the destitute, scavengers, maltreated, abused and uneducated children of Phnom-Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanouk ville. More than 6,000 children are living under the support of this orphanage and more than 450 Cambodian employees.

After the lesson, Reatrey sat down watching his students practicing some moves that he had showed them earlier. With small voice opposing to his stocky body, Reatrey talked softly describing his life in the orphanage.

Speaking with admiration, “For me, this orphanage is a hope to every child, but for those children who don’t grab this hope to study hard; it will be nothing but a waste. In here, they provide everything such as food, place to stay, and even a bicycle if anyone doesn’t have one.”

Reatrey began studying his first grade in PSE in 2002. Because of his family’s condition, his study record was not good. He failed class attendance and hardly passed in math.

“I had some difficulties before, after and even at class time. I always got up early in the morning to pick up garbage in oder to help my family. After class, I had to go out and pick up trash again. Sometime, I need to spend a whole night picking up garbage and slept along the road, and sometimes I slept in the rain as well.” saying with teardrops falling from his eyes.

Living as a scavenger, in the first few years in the orphanage, he never dreamt of being anything. All he wanted was picking up as much garbage as possible and sold it for money. Not until he met Mr. Prak Sombol, a librarian in PSE Orphanage, he started to know what he is good at and what he really wants to be.

“Lork Kru (teacher) Sombol taught me a lot about Khmer traditional music instruments and general knowledge about Khmer culture and Khmer history. And he is a conservative person,” said Reatrey with respect.

He started to study more about Khmer culture and Khmer history. Then he was inspired by Kun Khmer (Khmer Martial Art), he started to learn all kinds of Kun Khmer. After that, he chose Bokator as the main focus area. However, there was a strong disagreement from his mother about him learning Bokator.

“My mother did not allow me to learn Bokator. Sometimes, I need to make excuses for not being able to help her earning money. She warned me not to come home if I still learn it (Bokator) and sometimes she beat me as well. I also felt that I am not a grateful son to my mother because I think about myself more. But still I need to think about myself”, he said with a tense look.

After years of learning and practicing Bokator, Reatrey got a chance to represent PSE Bokator fighters in the National Khmer Martial Art Tournament of the year in 2013. With 4 matches fight, Reatry won the gold medal with 300.000 Riels reward prize. But half of the money was actually taken by Orphanage.

“There were corruptions in the middle level of this Orphanage, after tournament we all were given money, but the upper level (of the Orphanage) kept some and they said we need to give some money in order to support the Orphanage,” said Reatrey.

“Please look at our living condition, we can only earn some money from tournament and tournament does not happen everyday, it happens twice a year. We rarely have chance to earn money to support our families and I tried so hard to fight in 4 marches and got some injuries such as swollen face and broken tooth. If the orphanage really supports us please let us have this money,” he added.

By looking at the other side of Orphanage, there are some unwanted things happening behind the face of charity. Something that contrasts to the written and spoken words were stated in the orphanage mission and vision.

“In here, we used to have strong rules and regulation and no one dared to break them. But now things has changed, some kids steal things and create gangs group but no action was taken to them,” he said.

“There are many good study programs in here, but no one from the upper level really pays attention to make it serious. For example: sport. They created many kinds of sport for kids but they don’t pay attention after they created it. Sometimes when we request for sport materials, they ignored all the requests and they also put pressure afterward. Then, all programs started to mess up. They always promised and said good things in front of donors,” he added.

According to a study of attitude towards residential cares in Cambodia by the ministry of social affair, since 2005, the number of residential care facilities increased 75 percent, with 269 residential care facilities housing ten thousand children in 2010. It demonstrated that there are both advantages and disadvantages to the type of care they offer. The main advantage of residential care was the provision of basic needs, such as food, accommodation, health care and education.

However, according to the same study, since almost all residential care centres are funded by individuals from overseas, many centres turn to tourism to attract more donors. In the worst cases this becomes the basis for an “orphanage tourism” business, in which children are routinely asked to perform for, or befriend donors, and in some cases to actively solicit the funds to guarantee the residential centres’ survival. 

Talking about future plan, PSE has a course of directing children to what they want to be. This orphanage also gives graduates some money (loan) to start up business and after they are able to earn profit, they have to pay back. But for Reatrey, he does not think it’d be effective for his future.

“Honestly speaking, I stopped studying in the middle of the way because I think in here the way they teach us is not effective. So I decided to quit and join my brother, studying from him while working with him,” he said.

With a dream of helping kids who share the same path like him, Reatrey wants to be a Bokator master along with his dream of promoting Khmer culture and history to next generation.

He said with a smiling face, “I want to be a Bokator master so that I can help children who live a miserable life as I did. Moreover, I want to promote Khmer culture and history to people in the next generation.”