Messenger Band: seven textile workers set to music their daily life in Cambodia

Messenger Band: seven textile workers set to music their daily life in Cambodia

By Zineb Dryef, with Ros Dina
Cambodia Ka-set
29-09-2008


Their look stands nowhere near the fashionable creatures constantly seen on the television in Cambodia. The girls of the Messenger band prefer by far their jeans and traditional a cappella songs to flashy dresses and well-known western tunes covers. Hair soberly tied at the base of the neck and faces devoid of any artifice, the band shyly shows up on the small improvised stage of the Meta House, a cultural and artistic centre located in Phnom Penh. One of the girls even kept her big satchel with her. “My boss forces me to work all the time, I never stop, mother. I work without telling daytime from night time. Every month, I am careful with my salary, but after having paid the rent, electricity and water bills and the food, there's not much left. Still, I send it to you, my family”, they started singing.


This is how the textile workers who form the “Messenger band” opened the gig. “Cruel Karma” is about the difficulty to make ends meet for their fellow-workers. Altogether, they receive a few dozen dollars which they share with their family, living in the provinces.


Drawing inspiration from everyday social issues
This band, formed in 2005 by Womyn's Agenda for Change (WAC), a NGO working on the defence of women's rights, uses simple words in its songs and aims at making the voice of the silenced heard. Messenger band draws its inspiration from the many causes that WAC crusades for and concentrates on current issues such as the accumulation of debt, AIDS, prostitution, domestic violence or job insecurity. This mainly educational and active approach can easily be felt in the informative, accusatory but also imploring lyrics written by the band.

Vun Em, Sothany, Chivika, Sompose, Somneang, Leakna and Van Huon all work or have worked in the weaving factories of Phnom Penh. For that matter, Van Huon happens to be giving the Meta House gig a miss. If you need to see her, you will find her at the Kings Land factory. She was made redundant a few months ago but the 24 year-old brunette now spends her days taking active part in a strike started in January in the factory following the firing of 17 employees, all affiliated to unions. “The boss complained that we put our union involvement above work”. Since then, it is a real internal battle between unions which brought instability to the movement. The dispute got worse and there is no light so far at the end of the tunnel. Yet, Van Huon, who has not earned any salary for months, refuses to give up. “There was 600 of us at the beginning of the movement. Now, we're only 13, but very determined to see things change. Being a member of the band encourages me to keep campaigning, because I know what my rights are.”

Little success so far
Does the band tour and sing in factories, are their tunes loudly sung during the strikes, or is the reputation of the band strictly limited to a small public like the people present there, on that Saturday evening at the Meta House? So far, the band has mainly performed on the occasion of events like the International Women's day or Labour day and their audience was clearly already established, since active and informed. However, the WAC claims that the band is popular, including in the more rural and underprivileged areas. Van Huon says she “sometimes” sings short extracts from the band's creations during the strikes. Finding fame without the usual 'television' helping hand seems difficult, and the band is still seems far away from that stage. In Chom Chao, one of the working-class neighbourhoods of the capital city, nobody seems to have heard about the band.


The stories of women weavers' everyday life told to their family
At weekends, the girls usually set off for the countryside and other towns to perform their songs and at the same time organise debates. This is how they hear, collect and understand people's stories and their real demands. As conveyed by the name of the band, the singers think of themselves as the spokespersons of the forgotten people and re-use the words they are told to write their songs. Van Houn remembers a weekend she once spent in Kampong Speu: “We gave away tapes and posters of the band, sang a few song extracts. This is how we show our families what their children's living conditions really are in Phnom Penh. It makes some of them cry, because they discover a new reality. We hope to make them reflect upon this, because the sums of money represent a heavy burden for most of us.”

Similar backgrounds
The seven Messenger Band singers have more or less similar backgrounds. They were hired after auditioning with WAC, who was at that time carrying out door-to-door 'recruitment' in factories. They all come from modest backgrounds and large families and left the provinces to go to the working-class neighbourhoods of Phnom Penh when they turned 15 or 16. Needless to say, they all sacrificed their studies as well.


Sompose looks like an 18 year-old, but in fact she is 26. She came to Phnom Penh 10 years ago and was refused admission as a factory employee several times because of her age and the puniness of her build. She tried to set up a small business with other girls but failed in doing so. As a consequence she decided to go back to Prey Veng, where she was born. A year later, she came back to Phnom Penh and was hired to work in a factory. For two years, she put up with deplorable working condition, until a stomach health problem forced her to quit.


She now works 8 hours a day in the clothing industry, which is “less dangerous”, according to her . This employment provides Sompose with US$50 to US$60 every month, depending on the amount of her extra hours she does. She has been sending a small monthly annuity of $25 to her parents but admits she has not been able to do so over the past few months. “Life is too expensive, now. I have to pay US$23 every month for the rent. There used to be four of us in the apartment, and now we are just two, there.”

Starting in life was not as hard for Leakna; in 2004, advised by her sister, she applied at a factory. “My sister taught me everything so I didn't have to pay the US$50 they were asking for the initial training course.” Leakna lives with her parents in the vicinity of Phnom Penh.

All the girls volunteer in the band, apart from Sokhary, who in 2004 stopped working. She is now employed by WAC. To reimburse the band's travel expenses, the NGO provides the equivalent of a day's worth of work at the factory (about 2 dollars) to each singer.

The Messenger girls claim to be “proud” of their music. Van Huon joined them by chance: “I used to go to get some lunch in one of the branch offices of WAC. [The association now has 7 centres of information and help in the working-class neighbourhoods] Little by little, I started taking interest in my rights, and more generally speaking, in social issues.”

A song especially dedicated to the inhabitants of the Boeung Kak area
The band recently recorded a song with Kong Nai, the “Ray Charles” of Cambodia, who is one of the most famous chapei (a sort of traditional lute) players in the country. “Land and Life” is available for watching on YouTube which has already recorded a few thousand visits. The band's leading tune is dedicated to the inhabitants of the Boeung Kak area, threatened with expropriation. The short film is punctuated with scenes of violent evictions, soon followed by shots of a rural Cambodia, pacified and prosperous. And the song goes:

“We are Khmer people, from urban and rural areas, having ancestral cultural heritage, water, land and forest, sheltering both humans and animals, widely well-known, pleasant and bright. Now everything has changed, our villagers encounter problems. Because of dollars, we have lost our homes and land.”

When they are not at the factory, working, these little hands, expert in garment-making, rehearse on the houseboat which is used by WAC as their office. The band has already recorded two disks – with a third one on the way – which are mainly distributed in the active environment of associations. Upon listening to their songs, one realises that it is the sincerity and dynamism of the Messenger Band which moves, most of all, but despite their 3 years of existence, they still seem to be in the running-in period. The NGO is proud of the creation of this first – and all-female – protesting music band , but still needs to find and create its audience. What if Preap Sovath, a huge Cambodian pop star, offered them a duet? The singers spontaneously protested: “If it is one of his songs, then no, we are not interested. Messenger Band works on the realistic level.” ... How about their lyrics? They started laughing – it is true that the idea was quite far-fetched – and then replied: “Sure. We aim at touching the largest number of people.”