Sreymom Pol

Age 18
Home Country: Cambodia

A haze of traffic and people swirled around 17-year-old Sreymom Pol. She was standing in the streets of Phnom Penh, luggage in hand, having just arrived in the capital after a journey of 140 kilometers from her village in the Cambodian countryside. It was the farthest from home she had ever traveled and her dark brown eyes grew wide staring at the strange cityscape. As the recipient of a government scholarship to study chemistry, Sreymom had looked to the few girls from her village who had preceded her to the city: "I saw that they can go study by themselves, so I think maybe I can."

Yet life in Phnom Penh was not easy for a teenager, the baby of the family, who was living apart from her mother and sisters for the first time. In the first month, Sreymom lived ten kilometers away from her college, braving the hectic city streets every day by bicycle. She was soon awarded a housing scholarship that allowed her to stay in dorms nearer to the college, but the scholarship provided her with only a place to sleep—not food. Sreymom’s mother therefore began sending her daughter dried meals from the village by taxi. Each carefully packed parcel fed Sreymom for a week. As if her new surroundings weren’t foreign enough, Sreymom applied three months later for still another scholarship, one that took her even farther away from the life she knew—to a foreign country she had never envisioned visiting, much less spending the next six years. All this for an education most in her village believed would be wasted on a girl.

Slightly over five feet tall, Sreymom seems younger and more innocent than her 18 years. Her jolly disposition is masked in a demure, even doleful demeanor, yet it takes only one conversation, one burst of contagious laughter, for the façade to crumble. Her face cracks a smile, and like sunshine melting shadows, she is transformed. Her full, baby cheeks grow rounder, her button nose wrinkles, and her eyes crease with laughter, all but disappearing in the mirth of the moment.

As a child, Sreymom lived along with her three sisters and brother, parents, and grandparents, in a small house in a small village. The village had a market where Sreymom's mother supported her family selling goods. Her father worked as a teacher. The family separated from her grandparents when Sreymom was five, her parents moving their children to a bigger village with more opportunities. Like their former home, this village also consisted of simple wooden houses, but a thriving market and busy roads reflected a growing population. Most of the villagers made a living in agriculture, working as either rice or watermelon farmers. After the move, Sreymom’s mother stopped working in the market and instead sold rice out of a small shop in front of their home, giving her more time to take care of the children. Sreymom’s father abandoned his teaching career to become a musician, traveling over thirty kilometers every night by motorcycle to play organ in the Kampong Thom province. Growing up, Sreymom was very close to her father, who constantly bolstered her through many ups and downs in school. She describes him as "full of love and mercy." When he died of high blood pressure in February of 2005, Sreymom was 15. His death, she says, changed everything.

The morning Sreymom’s father died, he told her: "You are big enough so you can promise me that you won’t make someone worry about you, especially your mom." Those were his last words to her. After he died, Sreymom admits she no longer wanted to study. "My father always encourage me so I just try, try, try," she recalls. "But when he died, no one want to see my future, why [would] I try?" It was a difficult time for the Pol family. People in the village gossiped about Sreymom’s mother, speculating she wouldn't be able to feed her five children. They predicted that "everything would be down, down in my family," Sreymom says, because a family with only one son faced a bleak future. "They looked down on my mother. They [always] look down on the family that has a lot of daughters."

Both food and money were scarce as Sreymom’s mother scrambled to feed her children with her meager earnings from the store in front of their home. After Sreymom saw how hard her mother had to work to put that day's meal on the table, she recalled her father's last words and resolved to ease her mother’s worries. The villagers' digs fell on her ears like sharp hail; they also drove her to act. "I think I will make her feel happiness," she decided. "I will do my good future for her."

Sreymom excelled in school, earning her government scholarship for college in Phnom Penh in 2007 and then a place at the Asian University for Women. Her mother was proud of her daughter's acceptance at an international university, recognizing it as a rare opportunity to get "high knowledge abroad." She was also terrified at the prospect of sending her youngest to a poor, strange country characterized by natural disasters. Sreymom’s relatives fretted as well—her aunt informed her that all Muslim men would be rapists. Sreymom herself feared that AUW’s unusual mix of diverse religions might interfere with her own belief in Buddhism. Sreymom ultimately accepted her offer from AUW and now lives in a room with four other girls from countries all across Asia. She has since been intimately exposed to a melting pot of cultures and religions—her recent 18th birthday illustrates the transformation. The day had passed rather uneventfully. It was nearing midnight and Sreymom was lying in bed in her dorm room, miserable and homesick. She yearned for her mother and the birthday celebrations of her childhood, surrounded by loved ones and village friends. When she heard knocking at the door she feigned sleep, too depressed to face visitors. Her roommates barged in anyway and dragged her downstairs to a darkened classroom. The room suddenly erupted with light, and Sreymom was dazzled by a chorus of classmates serenading her with an English version of Happy Birthday. The group represented all sorts of Asian cultures and beliefs, a mixture of Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, and Cambodians. Sreymom glows as she recounts the story, saying, "I'm really surprised. I think all of them are really good for me."

Although she still struggles with homesickness, and her mother still worries about her in a foreign country, Sreymom has made a place for herself at AUW. Now, when her mother calls, she says laughing, "I just tell her than I'm fatter than before." She also extols AUW’s academic demand. "Even the small things we need to think about," she notes a bit begrudgingly, reminding us that even the best and the brightest can occasionally still sound like typical teenagers. Sreymom plans to use her degree to become a chemistry engineer and work in public health. She wants to provide clean water to people in her country; when she was growing up, many people in her village had to resort to pond water.

But perhaps the most valuable aspect of being at AUW for Sreymom has been defying expectation. She explains, "My mother always said she didn't have anything to give me. She had no money, nothing; she just found money for one day at a time. 'So you must try yourself,' [she said]." As a student at AUW, every day she works to stay true to her father’s words. Furthermore, she has dealt a resounding blow to the predictions of her gossiping neighbors: "They think the women can’t do anything— they just stay at home, do a little thing to earn some money. It's not like the son; daughters can't earn money far away and support the home." She pauses and her rounded face dawns with wonder: "I have destroyed that thought."