| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Allison Clark |
Posted - Mar 18 2021 : 12:19:28 AM
I am working on my intermediate part of the merit badge. I am supposed to tell you what I learned about the culture and person I studied. I chose to do my research on an Irish saint. Saint Patrick was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland. According to the autobiographical Confessio of Patrick, when he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland, looking after animals; he lived there for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick's Day is observed on 17 March, the supposed date of his death. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; it is also a celebration of Ireland itself. I learned so much about Saint Patrick that I did not know. It was fun doing the research.
This is what I did for the expert part of the merit badge. I did make the beaded bookmark for my husband. That took a long time to make. I made corn beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, and Bacon, potato, cabbage soup. It was all so good. ![]() ![]() 
Allison Clark |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| MaryJanesNiece |
Posted - May 26 2021 : 1:26:29 PM
Wow Cindy Arn sure had a rough start to life. It made me tear up. No child deserves to experience that. I am happy he came out on top and things are much better for him. Thank you for sharing the story. Congratulations on finishing your badge.
Krista |
| AussieChick |
Posted - May 25 2021 : 12:47:37 AM
I am also working on my intermediate Languages/Culture badge. Cambodia is my country of choice and I chose to research Arn Chon-Pond. It almost brought me to tears as I read about his incredible life. I hope you enjoy learning a little more about this amazing person.
Arn Chorn-Pond is a musician, human rights activist, and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. He is an advocate for the healing and transformative power of the arts, and especially music. Arn was born in Cambodia in 1966 into a Battambang family of performers and musicians. According to Arn in a 2006 article: "My family owned an opera company. The National Charity Company, as we were called, performed in temples, opera houses and mayors’ compounds throughout the country. Many people knew my father, grandfather, and uncle through their performances, which had become legendary. Since the family ran the company, all of us performed. When I was six or seven, I often played the role of a baby. Somebody would say “Cry!” and I’d cry...My father and uncle trained my older cousin, in his teens at the time, to perform the main roles in traditional Cambodian operas." After his father died in a 1969 motorcycle accident, his mother, who ran a vegetable stall, gave him away to be raised by a childless aunt and uncle.
He was 11 years old when the Khmer Rouge swept to power in Cambodia in 1975, and by 1979 nearly two million people, a quarter of the population, were executed or died from starvation, torture or untreated disease. Arn was separated from his family and forced to walk to one of the many work camps set up around Cambodia where he survived by playing the flute and keeping the soldiers entertained. In a 2002 interview Arn described how his survival depended on repressing his emotions and distancing himself from the horror of his situation: "I was in a temple where they killed three or four times a day. They told us to watch and not to show any emotion at all. They would kill us if we reacted...if we cried, or showed that we cared about the victims. They would kill you right away. So I had to shut it all off...I can shut off everything in my body, practically, physically. I saw them killing people right in front of me, the blood was there, but I didn't smell it. I made myself numb...The killing was unbearable. You go crazy if you smell the blood."
Eventually, he escaped into the jungle where he survived for months by himself. "I followed monkeys and ate whatever they ate. I fished with my hands and ate fruits, and killed monkeys, too". In late 1980 he crossed the border into Thailand and a Thai Soldier took him to the Sa Kaeo Refugee Camp. There he met the Reverend Peter L. Pond. "He weighed about 60 pounds and he was very sick," Reverend Pond later recalled, "He had cerebral malaria and he was really close to death...This sick little child reached up and touched me, and said in English, 'Hello.' That...was Arn Chorn from the very first, reaching out and touching." Reverend Pond took Arn to Jefferson, New Hampshire and formally adopted him in 1984. In all, Pond adopted 16 Cambodian children, mostly orphans, including one who eventually became Rhode Island's first Cambodian physician, Dr. Soneath Pond.
During his initial months in the US, Arn experienced difficulties as one of the first non-white students to attend White Mountains Regional High School. He graduated from Gould Academy in Maine in 1985, attended Northfield Mount Hermon School and attended Brown University for two years before withdrawing to co-found Children of War, an organization dedicated to help young people to overcome suffering from war and other traumas such as child abuse, poverty, racism and divorce. From its inception in 1984 through 1988, Children of War trained a core leadership group of 150 young people representing twenty-one countries. More than 100,000 U.S. students from 480 schools participated in the program. In 1992 Arn received a bachelor's degree in political science from Providence College and in 2007 the school awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humanitarian Service .
Arn was also one of the few surviving Cambodians to return to the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border. While attending college in Rhode Island, Arn devoted his summers from 1986 through 1988 to teaching and assisting those still displaced by war. He was also the youngest Cambodian involved in diplomatic efforts for reconciliation. While a student at Providence College, Arn co-founded the Southeast Asian Big Brother/Big Sister Association in Providence and founded Peace Makers, a US-based gang intervention program for Southeast Asian youths in Providence. In 1993 he returned to Cambodia and founded the Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development.
In 1998 he founded the Cambodian Master Performers Program, which grew into Cambodian Living Arts. The organization's original mission was to revive the endangered traditional performing arts in Cambodia by locating former masters or trained professional musicians and helping them to pass on their skills and knowledge to the next generation. Cambodian Living Arts has since expanded its scope of programming to include scholarships, fellowships, workshops, training, commissions, arts education, and a cultural enterprise that provides enriching job opportunities to Cambodian performing artists.
Arn Chorn-Pond was one of the first recipients of the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1988, and he received the 1991 Amnesty International Human Rights Award, the 1993 Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize, and the 1996 Spirit of Anne Frank Outstanding Citizen Award. Arn now lives outside of Phnom Penh.
Farmgirl #6058
Farmgirl Sister of the Year 2021
"The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have". |
| MaryJanesNiece |
Posted - Mar 19 2021 : 2:20:26 PM
Great work Allison! All your food looks delicious and your bookmark is nice. What an exciting person to research with the recent holiday. I haven’t been to Ireland but it’s definitely on my list of places to visit!
Krista |
| Red Tractor Girl |
Posted - Mar 18 2021 : 4:08:36 PM
Allison, you did a great job on this merit badge! When I got to visit Ireland two years ago, St. Patrick is still very beloved as their Patron Saint. Your food photos look delicious!! WOW!!! What a splendid dinner you made for you and hubby too. I do love that darling shamrock pottery plate too!!
Winnie #3109
Red Tractor Girl
Farm Sister of the Year 2014-2015
FGOTM- October 2018 |
| YellowRose |
Posted - Mar 18 2021 : 05:29:04 AM
Allison I enjoyed learning about Saint Patrick. In your research did you find anything about him ridding Ireland of snakes? Always heard that was why there are no snakes in Ireland.
FarmGirl Hugs, Sara
FarmGirl Sister #6034 Aug 2014
FarmGirl of the Month Sept 2015 & Feb 2019
Lord put your arm around my shoulders & your hand over my mouth.
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