Disclaimer: Heavy content- this essay I wrote on the way back from 10 days in Cambodia
Between fish and rice somewhere I lost my glasses.
Touring in Cambodia is like throwing a birthday party in a holocaust museum. The wounds are fresh. The blood spatters still stain the ceiling to cast a ghostly shadow over the lotus flowers, incense and shiny gold paper fettishes that adorn the temples and shrines to a smiling Buddha. Each of the cab drivers and tour guides generously and readily shares his story. Everyone over 20 years old was a firsthand witness. They recall counting the grains of rice in the thin gluten broth cooked in a single pot to feed 100 people. They recall running to hide when soldiers appeared. Their fathers were left crippled, uncles were killed. Images flash of the 4x8 foot cells at S-21 camp where their parents or neighbors sat chained to the floor for years with a metal box to collect their own feces, happy to be there instead of in the torture rooms, praying to be taken to the killing fields and shot, then plowed into a mass grave with thousands of others, a more humane existence.
Yet I stand at the base of a tower of water cascading over a fern encased cliffside, heavy drops beating on my back, splashing loudly. My only care is how to etch the experience into my memory. Massive vine-wrapped trees flank giant boulders that encircle the pool in which I bathe like fingers on the upturned hand of Buddha, receiving a gift of life. Just as it comes we are reminded how quickly it goes. Smooth and twisted tree roots tangle in tentacles over and through, their vibration too immense to perceive, an unstoppable force holding on, holding the pieces in place, and also changing everything.
Seeking moisture in the cool sandstone, these dinosaur trees penetrate a thousand years of civilization, forcing themselves on the ancient temples of Angkor Thom and rendering once massive columns and arches of intricately carved stone into crumbles in a slow but steady pulse. The trees tell the true story: a struggle of staunch resistance and violent pursuit, of domination and defeat, of broken arches and shattered backs, of surrender and collapse, and ultimately a return to quiet and peace, the smiling Buddha.
Our hotel was built three years ago. Siem Reap is now a tourist mecca complete with a Galleria mall and high end coiture, while the city barely existed 20 years ago. Three million people were killed in the genocide, victims of Pol Pot and his cabinet whose vision was of a harsh flattening of class and economic divisions. Artists and intellectuals, scientists and "well dressed balding people with spectacles" were invited by the government to come to the city center to receive grants and assignments to further their intellectual pursuits. A week later their spouses and children were sent for, told they had been given a nice home and their loved ones were waiting for them. These people were systematically disappeared. The intellectual and ambitious were exterminated by the Khmer Rouge, a mass decapitation to reduce and dismember any potential resistance or leadership.
This happened while I was feeding the squirrels in Eastwoods Park, seining for minnows and snapping turtles in Waller creek, and drawing pegasus murals on my bedroom wall. This happened while I was learning to make friends, playing soccer, having crushes on boys. This happened well into my years in graduate school.
Pol Pot died in 1998, unconvicted, untried. A truce decided on a "win-win" solution in which all the former soldiers and leadership (excepting 5 people who were tried for war crimes) maintained their government jobs. Even the prime minister is the same to this day. The men who did the torturing still have their jobs. The men who killed and raped and forced starvation still have their jobs. And we remember they are human. They were soldiers with commands. This is the essence of war. Incomprehensible in my sheltered, privileged life.
I am angry because the airline charged me $240 for my 1 medium sized piece of luggage. Angered more because the people in line after me got out of paying the same fee by raising voices and making a scene. Annoyed because there was no soap in my hotel room. Appalled that the masseuse that I hired was inappropriate with me.
I can’t imagine the feelings I would have if someone tortured then killed my mother. My father. My brother. My heart quickens at the thought. My stomach turns. Torture and murder defy the bounds of humanity. I feel perplexed, without response, incapable of understanding, as if the earth opened up and swallowed my heart and left only a shell to wander and witness.
What must these people feel?
And yet, there's a birthday party to be had. Not literally, but 20 years of peace is a huge accomplishment. People are kind, laugh easily. The country is in a state of rapid development with tons of outside investors. Our guide was quick to say Cambodian people are peace loving. He was a joy, a gem. Not one person came across as jaded or bitter. Instead resilient. Determined. Devout and committed to the way of Buddha. Loving kindness.
My dad orders a coconut. I order a watermelon juice. We notice the "air con" we had been promised was off. We comment on the mediocrity of the food but eat it anyway, and too much. We decide to take a tuk tuk back to the hotel and skip the old market, knowing we had little space in our luggage to cram in the extras. Leaving, a dirty boy about 6 years old with a smaller boy clutching his knee asks for a dollar and we decline, again, not having small bills in our pockets, and at some level uncomfortably uncertain about the best thing to do. (Is he panhandling for his mom or someone else, and should we encourage that?) We climb in the tuk tuk and head back to the hotel for a nap by the pool. Another day in Cambodia. The conscience nags but the answers don't come.
See photo: Shackles in S-21