Seeing Hands

After three days of hiking through temples and sitting on a not so comfortable electric bike puttering around, my body was pretty damn sore. What to do, how about a massage? I’m sure they’ve got to be more than affordable here in Cambodia, where my mototaxi rides cost 50 cents and my meals are between $.75 and $2. But like most countries there is prostitution here, and navigating massage parlors for a straight up massage may be difficult. Here in Cambodia there is a perfect answer for this, it’s called Seeing Hands Massage. It is a massage center with several branches across Cambodia who are run and operated by the blind. Approaching Seeing Hands IV of Siem Reap I was welcomed by several masseuses and the one seeing person that each branch employs to handle money and paperwork. The place wasn’t very well lit, but it didn’t need to be. I entered a changing room where I put on pants and a top just like doctor scrubs, which lets you know this just a massage, nothing else. In the main room there were 5 professional massage tables, I headed for the last one where I met, Rumdour, my masseuse. For an hour, he did a great job pummeling out my aches and pains, stretching and beating down my muscles from head to toe. By the end I was ready to face another three days of temples if need be. At $4 for the hour, how can that be beat.

I talked with Rumdour for a bit afterwards. He’s 26 years old and has been blind since birth. He’s from a big family with 5 sisters all to himself. Several years ago, he was taught massage by a Japanese instructor who was here teaching groups of blind. After training, Rumdour moved to the coast to work in the town of Kampot. But just 3 months ago he was able to return to his hometown of Siem Reap to work. He says it’s great being back at home near his family and to support himself and help out the family finances.

An estimated 132,000 blind or visually impaired live in Cambodia. There are occurrences of people being robbed after having acid thrown in their face leaving them blind, that’s rare and most of the causes come from landmines, vitamin deficiencies, traffic accidents, disease. According to an ABC (Association of the Blind in Cambodia) report, the blind are "socially and economically marginalized," because people think their disabilities preclude an active life. In Cambodia this usually results in the blind becoming beggars or being kept at home in the most inactive life you can think of trapped by the way society and family view their disability thinking them unemployable and uneducable.

The turn around began in 1996 when a Fr.Barth from the Catholic charity, Maryknoll, met Sous Sothi a blind Cambodian who was a masseuse in Montreal, Canada, home visiting his family. Maryknoll’s mission at the time was to help the blind in Cambodia. Fr.Barth convinced Sothi to stay in his home country longer and begin training the blind to be masseuses. After that initial round other masseuses have come giving there time, training and expanding the skills of the Cambodians. At first Seeing Hands was run through NGO funding, but is now self-sufficient, completely Cambodian owned and operated. It has become such a success story, giving hope to the hopeless and challenging the views of Cambodians to see the blind as productive members of this growing country. It is also so successful that now many other massage centers advertise massage by the blind, trying to capitalize on Seeing Hands success. My recommendation is to stick with the best and the original.

Me and Rumdour