CMAC

*Published on **2018-05-02** by **Kelley** | Categories: Travel*

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Hanging in this super cool place, chasing scorpions and tarantulas and blowing things up was one of the cooler stories I have from traveling. Winding down after the shoot, we sat around a card table letting the day waste away and telling our own stories. In those moments where we were sitting, waiting for the shoot to wrap, I unearthed yet another find that split me open. My featured image shows the face of a man who is one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met in my travels. I never even knew is real name. Everyone just called him CMAC (See-mack). I knew him as part of the team and saw him often. He held out a hand to be sure I had a place to land if I tripped. He opened doors, he brought food, he found drinks, he smiled alllllll the time. He spoke English so I got to know him more than the rest of the crowd. He told me about his wife and how he missed her at home and a little about what his life conisted of. It happened as he was describing what he did for a living that I was torn apart. We called him CMAC because that’s where he worked. He worked for the Cambodian Mine Action Center. What I didn’t know about Cambodia is that it’s riddled with landmines and has been for decades. Overrun with explosives, this country has suffered and continues to suffer in an unspeakable way. Estimates say there are between 4-6 million mines to as many as 10 million mines in a country of 11.5 million people. – [How many mines?](http://www.seasite.niu.edu/khmer/ledgerwood/landmines.htm)

Rural areas are disproportionally effected by the blows. Living far from a hospital means there’s more likelihood that injuries sustained have had time to fester. “The International Committee of the Red Cross statistics claim that only 25% of mine victims arrive at hospital within 6 hours of being injured with 15% having to travel for more than 3 days before they reach a hospital.” – [From Injury to Hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mines_in_Cambodia). Coming in at 40,000 amputees, Cambodia has one of the highest amputee rates in the world according to Seasite.niu.edu. That’s one amputee for every 290 people. I just pulled this from the internet for the sake of argument. “On average we live for 78.3 years. Most of us remember people we meet after age 5. Assume we interact with 3 new people daily in cities, 365 days in a year plus leap year days is 365.24. In total it will be (78.3 – 5) x 3 x 365.24 = 80,300 people.” – [How many people do you know?](https://blog.adioma.com/counting-the-people-you-impact-infographic/) If I lived in Cambodia I would know 117 amputees on my 36th birthday (just last week) or 275 amputees by time I was 78. I currently know 1.

However, it’s not just limbs people are losing. People are losing their lives. Landmines are killing people even today. The worst part is that many of them are children. The Cambodian Red Cross says 50% of landmine casualties are children in their 2003 Landmine Impact Survey. – [Unicef – Children/Landmine factsheet](https://www.unicef.org/french/protection/files/Landmines_Factsheet_04_LTR_HD.pdf). Now, sure the numbers may have changed as of today but those are staggering figures either way. Why so many children? Well first of all, where many of these unexploded ordinances are hidden is where children tend to explore. Second, the way most landmines (blast mines and fragmentation mines) found in Cambodia are designed to explode is that they put most of their blast at waist level of an adult. But if you’re a child, that’s your face. Something that is designed to rip a mans leg clean off will certainly take care of a child. This to me is unbelievable. The kicker on top of it all? We had a part in it. Americans helped put them there. (Granted we weren’t the only ones involved, I’ll get to that in a bit.) The biggest problem is that the people who physically put them there don’t even remember where they were within a few years. [Man clears mines he set years ago](http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/cnnheroes.cambodia.demining/index.html).

This is where CMAC steps in. And I mean CMAC the guy and CMAC the project. CMAC’s job is to go into the hills, mountains, valleys, streams, rivers and landscape of Cambodia and cleans up land mines. [CMAC Home](http://cmac.gov.kh)

Like….what? This amazing, gentle, thoughtful man goes in digging up land mines for a living and I’m sitting here snacking on a freaking cracker.

“The costs of laying mines are low, as little as $3 US per mine, but the costs of removal are very high, $1000 US per mine or more. One study, cited on a UN website, noted a particular project in Cambodia where 45 deminers worked seven months. They found 265 mines and 943 units of unexploded ordinance. The cost of the project was about $378,000 US, or about $1,400 US a mine or $5 US for every square meter of cleared land.” – [SEASite](http://www.seasite.niu.edu/khmer/ledgerwood/landmines.htm)

As if all this weren’t bad enough, the people who are living with amputations and their families are struggling even more with the poverty they already live in. It’s not only the amputee’s labor lost, but the people who have to take care of them.

Even writing this now, I have to take a breath. This was not what I expected to find out while I was running around in a field pretending I knew anything about blowing things up. And CMAC just pretended like his job was delivering the mail. He was proud to work for his people. I went home that night reeling. It is tough to get your mind wrapped around something like this. I’m sure you’re struggling too. Now, I’ve been concealing a little bit of info tied to all this mine business. It’s how they all got there.