What Bopha Samms remembers most about starving in a work camp under the Khmer Rouge regime was dreaming of food. She and her family of 11 siblings and parents, along with all the other inhabitants of the city, were forced out of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 by the Khmer Rouge soldiers. They were marched over 7 months from place to place, often in 120 degree heat, and finally ended up in Battambang, where various members of the family were split up into separate camps. Old folks were in one camp, young children in another, and able-bodied like Bopha , who was 19 years old and a high school student at the time, in a separate place.

Ultimately fourteen members of Bopha’s family died, including her parents, 6 of her brothers and sisters, and 3 nephews and 3 nieces, mostly from disease and starvation. For four years Bopha worked on irrigation projects, digging canals and planting and harvesting rice. She was never allowed to eat the rice, and the Khmer Rouge fed them only thin, watery soup, “nothing to chew”. At night Bopha dreamed that everything she touched turned to food.

Bopha met her future husband, Sybonard, aka Phanna, on a work team, but they had no relationship at the time. They both knew that they liked each other, but their obligations kept them apart. Bopha wanted to escape the country with her family while Phanna had to take care of his siblings and elderly mother. Bopha finally escaped from forced labor by running secretly at night for weeks toward the Thai border with a few other people, not including her future husband, during the Vietnamese invasion in 1979. They lived on spiders, crickets, frogs, and anything they could steal, including cornhusks and cobs. With her brothers Rithy and Thom and sisters Savry and Sophan, Bopha finally reached Thailand traveling through numerous mine fields, and evading Vietnamese soldiers who shot at them regularly. Death was a constant possibility.

Sybonard turned up in the same refugee camp 5 or 6 months after Bopha arrived, but still there was no time for them to establish a real relationship. Bopha and her brothers and sisters were finally sponsored by the International Institute to come to the USA, and placed in Rhode Island. Here she went about learning English as fast as she could, and then was resettled in Bourne, Massachusetts under the aegis of the First Baptist Church of Pocasset. Soon a family in Bourne, Cathy and Gordon Pierce, offered Bopha a job as a nanny; Bopha lived with them for two years, went to high school, and got her GED. She considers them her best friends and trusted advisors still.

Her future husband, Sybonard Samms turned up again, now in the USA, and this time the luxury of romance bloomed, and they were married. Both husband and wife worked two jobs and saved every cent they could, until finally they were able to buy a house. Then they decided that to get ahead they needed to start a restaurant, and by refinancing their house, they were able to open STIR CRAZY Restaurant in Bourne, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, in 1989.

Bopha and her husband have 3 children now- Khemara, 25, a graduate of Mass. Maritime Academy; Chrisna, 23, a mother of two, and Chinda, 15, at Bourne High School. Bopha’s brother, Rithy, got married a few years ago, to a wonderful, hardworking Cambodian woman, Chantheng, whom he met while visiting his relatives in Cambodia. Rithy and his wife work with Bopha at STIR CRAZY, managing “the front” while Bopha is chief chef. Rithy also has another job caring for disabled people. Bopha’s husband helps in the restaurant as well as having a full time job as a technician with a company in N. Falmouth! Sister Savry helps out when needed. Rithy and his wife have a new baby, Soriya, of whom Bopha is very proud.

Bopha has not forgotten her Cambodian roots. I met up with her recently when she was back in Cambodia visiting relatives, over the restaurant’s brief seasonal close-down period in midwinter Massachusetts. She also wanted to visit TSF projects in Roteang village, as she had done several years ago. She enjoys talking with our nannies at the Orphanage, and our teachers in our Farm literacy school, and, of course, falls in love again with our beautiful orphanage children. Bopha expressed great satisfaction in how the money she raises is used. She regularly hosts projects for The Sharing Foundation at STIR CRAZY, including an “Orphanage Jar” where employees deposit $3 for every meal they eat there, and customers regularly throw in contributions.

Together we visited a very poor orphanage in Kompong Speu where Bopha has underwritten a chicken farming project, and TSF contributed school uniforms and minor financial help. Bopha remarked at length about the difference in management at this facility, and her pride in being associated with TSF projects.

She is already planning her big event for us in the spring at STIR CRAZY, with our development committee headed by Lisa Hicks of Wellesley. The food will be spectacular, and Bopha has already enlisted musicians to come – We will let everyone in plausible zip codes know when the plans are solidified, and one should make sure not to miss meeting this remarkable, truly “risen for the ashes” Cambodian, with her unconquerable spirit, and her "give back" attitude, truly helping TSF take care of Cambodian children!

We are also very proud to announce that Bopha Samms has just accepted nomination to the Board of TSF, and would be our first Cambodian board member!