Mot Yen’s ramshackle kitchen is nestled under an old mango tree. It’s near the end of the season and there’s no fruit on the branches. Part of the kitchen wall has fallen off but the family doesn’t plan to fix it. “We’re moving anyway,” the 56-year-old farmer said. Just a couple of hundred meters (yards) away from her house in Chey Oudom 2 village in Kien Svay District, Kandal Province, is a construction site where the Cambodian government held a groundbreaking ceremony for former leader Hun Sen’s monumental project – the Funan Techo Canal – on Aug.
Hundreds of people were invited to the launch of the US$1.7 billion project, waving flags and floating balloons as celebratory drums beat and Buddhist monks chanted blessings.