Opening Ceremony Part 2

The opening ceremony was amazing. Over 600 people attending, flags running along the completed embankment, ribbons covering the watergate. It was incredible.
The ceremony started about 45 minutes late because the Deputy Provincial Governor, shown above, arrived late. Speeches were made by Someth, Narith, Tobias, wiL and myself. The westerner speeches were translated into Khmer by Chai. When the Deputy Provincial Governor started his speech he made a last second request for Chai to translate his Khmer speech into English so that the westerners in attendance could understand. Chai looked a little flustered but really didn't have a choice and proceeded with the impromptu translation.

The Governor's speech was interesting. He had a prepared written speech in front of him but began his speech by announcing that he would not be reading the prepared speech but would just talk about the project. He proceeded to ramble on for 30 minutes about the project, about the wealth of Americans, about how the villagers need to request additional projects from us and then he committed to build a road from the Balang Commune to the Commune north of the site. At one point he asked the villagers to raise their hand if they were interested in Human Translation building a secondary school in Balang then turned to Tobias and asked him to build a secondary school.

After the speeches, we all walked along the embankment for the watergate ribbon cutting. Seeing all of the people at the watergate was definitely my favorite part of the ceremony. The site has been an isolated place for the majority of the project and to see all of these friends, colleagues and villagers at the watergate was incredible.


It was extremely hot that day so as soon as the ceremony was complete the site cleared out pretty quick. The HT and EWB crews hung out for a bit while Jenn and Chai did a quick site review. It wasn't until this point that I noticed the sign that was hung up at the back of the stage (shown above).