The City Suffers

The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh...

Where only 30-40 years ago 1.7 million Khmers (1/4 of the population of people from Cambodia) were buried by their own countrymen. The goal was to halt all forms of inspiration, education, and freedom. Pit after pit of dead bodies were excavated, until the point had been made- let the other bodies rest, as these skulls and moved earth show the horror of what this country is still recovering from. Some of the pits in the Killing Fields were filled with all women, some were only children, some were all decapitated victims- all were beat and tortured. Stacked skulls rise high in a temple near the entrance of the fields to memorialize and intensify this horrible genocide.

Tears stream down my cheeks as we walk through the quiet grounds. So much suffering, how does a human being torture or kill another?! So many families destroyed, lives turned into pure painful existence... running and silenced for fear. What people do for power is inhumane. So many innocent civilians slaughtered for the goal of an uneducated peasant community.

If that was not enough sorrow-filled education for one day our next stop was Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This barbed wire half block in the middle of downtown is an old high school that was transformed into a prison during the Khmer Rouge Regime. A 3-story building built with hope for education, turned into a chamber of torture. This is where the civilians were brought before they were bused to the Killing Fields.

Inside each room I feel slightly suffocated. I feel the weight of the cruelty and injustice that happened within these walls. I CAN NOT imagine what happened here (even with all the visual aids of beds with chains, pictures of starving men, battered children, torture devices still on the premises) The walls are stained with suffering, the tiles on the floor have felt so much weight, the stairwells tell nightmare-ish stories.

Sick to my stomach, I can not drink my water thinking of all those who died of starvation and dehydration on these grounds alone. The entire country was starving for years under Pol Pot's rule. Starved and overworked or killed were the two types of life offered at this time.

We rode home in silence trying to make sense of it all. Watching the people who are trying to put together all the pieces of a shattered society, the rebuilding from this cultural massacre and shredded nation.

I look at all the people we pass and am amazed to see so many smiling faces. I have to take a second glance at anyone who is over 40 and wonder what the hell their life has been like... how were they able to survive? The kids run around barefoot in the street and smile as they scream "hello" when we pass. The hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers and store merchants are relentless with their, "hey lady" "you want to buy" "have a look lady." I guess it is better than "madame"- wanna see me really get close to my patience level... call me "madame" and ask me what I want twelve hundred times in a row.

I do like Phnom Penh. It is an interesting city... built by the french, destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, reestablished when the Vietnamese attacked Pol Pot (and of course unnecessarily and randomly bombed by the US). I will not say it is a dream destination or a place I can't wait to return to, but it is a city licking its wounds. Our last two meals were at restaurants that provide programs and training to former street youth www.streetfriends.org. I even cried after lunch because our little waiter was so fricking cute and made it off the streets!

All right, just thought we should all know a bit about the action that has been going on over here the past few decades... next stop Mekong Delta?!?!