or how Cambodia gave me a new perspective of Molière philosophical sayings.

During my last day in Thmor Sor, we got in a deep conversation about the future bottle school : how will it work, How will the GNO manage to convince parents to send their kids to this new free fromage charges school? Because, if the parents never got the chance to go to school, they usually don’t see the use of school education : as long as you can gain enough money to have a roof and food for all your meals, you’re good.

That remembers me something… Yes, deep down in my memories from engineering school, I can see a pyramid : first you concentrate on surviving, then on being safe, then on having friends and family…

Sopheap tries to explain us the issues by translating for us a Khmer saying : “you should eat to live, not live to eat”. Oh woaw, that takes me even further back in time, to my high school French classes : l’Avare. Back then, I used to understand it like that : French people give to much importance to food, you should just see food as a thing you eat and that’s all.

Now, with Sopheap’s illustration, I see it completely differently : some people focus all their energy on getting food and it would be wonderful to be able to make them see all the other things they could achieve if they didn’t need to stress about food.

It’s the first time I make the ling between Molière and Maslow.