Cambodia,  SE Asia

Back in Cambodia

November 21, 2018 / 3,752 Comments

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

– Miriam Beard

Same Country, New Experience

Cambodia.  I’ve been here before and this time I’m coming to stay for awhile.

I’m volunteering in the capital of Phnom Penh for seven weeks working with a local microfinance enterprise.  A US based volunteer placement organization called Ubelong hooked me up with a Cambodian volunteer placement organization called Star Kampuchea, which then placed me with a microfinance social enterprise called Mitt Kaksekar Financial.

Whew.  Ten steps to progress.  

I’m looking forward to this experience.  After seven months of travel, I don’t feel particularly homesick (sorry mom), but I am getting tired of being ‘on the road’.  I’m eager to stay in one place for awhile, and make personal connections and routines that endure for more than a few days at a time. I’m also ready to be productive.  This year has been great.  It’s been fun throwing all adult responsibilities out the window.  But it’s about time I contribute something again.     

For the next two months I’ll be staying at a hostel like house in Phnom Penh with several other volunteers.   Some volunteers in the house are only in Cambodia for a few short weeks.  Several are here for three or four months.  Not unexpectedly, most are in their early to mid-20’s, are amidst the transition between school and work life, and the vast majority are female.   On my arrival there are about 15 women staying here, and one lone male.   (Guys….I know you can do better than this.  REPRESENT! ) 

Star Kampuchea has orientation for new volunteers every two weeks, meaning the house population is a constant morphing mix of new accents and personalities.  There are a handful of french nurses.  Quite a few dutch students.  A Chilean lawyer left last week.  A Malaysian baker joined this week.  Always something new.

The volunteer house provides full room and board.  Neither are anything fancy, but they more than meet my basic needs.  The neighborhood is a noisy spectrum of activity of motorcycles, tuk tuks, smells of street food vendors with the occasional wiff of garbage.  It’s everything I remember fondly about SE Asia.  

  • The dining room
  • My Cambodian home

Orientating 

My first few days in Phnom Penh are spent at volunteer orientation and a city tour organized by Star Kampuchea. 

At orientation, myself and a half dozen other new volunteers  learn tips and tricks for maneuvering around Cambodian culture and Phnom Penh as a city.  My roommate, Donna, is also new to the volunteer house.  She is 29 and was born in Canada but is of Cambodian heritage. She is volunteering in Cambodia for the next month working with kids in a local school.  We got to know each other much better over the upcoming weeks, but early on I was more than happy to be sharing a room with someone with a pleasant personality who is closer to 30 than to 20.   

I also met Jenny, who is a mid-30’s Air Force medic, nurse, and recently single soul searcher from Michigan living in San Diego. She’s only volunteering in Cambodia for a week, which is a shame.  I like her a lot, and it’s nice to add some mo adult mix to the student population here. 

Friends from day one – Jenny and my roommate Donna

On day one I also learned that I’m the only person in the house volunteering in microfinance.  Most of the other volunteers are working with children in some capacity or as nurses in a nearby hospital.  My work site is also an tuk tuk hour away.  I’ll only need to go there a few days a week, and can work independently the rest of the time, as long as I’m on wifi.  This news was…well a little disappointing.  My mental picture of volunteering in Cambodia didn’t have me sitting at a computer typing away in some local coffee shop by myself. 

I’m keeping an open mind.  

The Sad History of Cambodia

My first few days in Phnom Penh were also filled with somber moments.  Orientation included a brief historical run down of the mass starvation and genocide that occurred during the Khmer Rouge rule in the mid to late 1970’s.  Over 2 million people, possibly as many as 3 million Cambodians, died during this time.  Roughly a quarter of the entire country’s population.  The fact that this occurred so recently, only 40 years ago, means almost every Cambodian today still feels some impact.  If they didn’t survive it themselves, their parents did.  Almost everyone has an uncle, a cousin, or a grandparent that didn’t. 

Cambodia shares its eastern border with Vietnam.  Because of this fact of geography, the US invested heavily in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.  The US funded the Cambodian government, and chose and replaced it’s leadership from across an ocean.  Cambodia was not directly involved in this war.  It had not chosen a side.  But the US wanted to keep a strong US ally within arm’s reach, and prevent Vietnam from spreading communism across the border.

Regrettably, during this time in the early 1970’s, the US also bombed the hell out of eastern Cambodia.  The US killed thousands of innocent Cambodians during these raids. This is where the Khmer Rouge comes in.  Initially an extremist communist group that lacked large popular support, it’s popularity grew stronger as anti-American sentiment increased.  Eventually a civil war ensued between the American placed government and the Khmer Rouge.  As the Vietnam War became more dire and expensive, America eventually lost interest in funding Cambodia.  Shortly thereafter the Cambodian government fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. 

The Evacuation of Phnom Penh

I can’t possibly cover all the atrocities that ensued, but one important event that followed the Khmer Rouge ‘victory’ was an immediate evacuation of all major cities.  This wasn’t accomplished in a matter of weeks or months, but in a matter of hours.  Residents of Phnom Penh, a city of over a million people at the time, had about 4 hours to evacuate. It didn’t matter if you were old, young, injured or in the hospital.  Everyone had to leave and many died on the journey out of the city. 

The Khmer Rouge forced Cambodians into a life of agriculture, attempting to create a self-sufficient communist society.  City dwellers with no prior experience in farming had to be ‘re-educated’.  Intellectuals, teachers, doctors, foreigners, and anyone who spoke a foreign language was seen as a threat to this way of life and needed to be ‘liquidated’.  Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died of starvation at this time while Cambodian grown food was exported to China for arms.  Thousands more died in horrific prison camps and killing fields across the country. 

Some well known Khmer Rouge quotes included the memorably appalling sayings “Better to kill an innocent by mistake then to spare an enemy by mistake.” And “To dig up the grass, one must also dig up the roots.”  Meaning if they suspected you of something, they killed you and your entire family.  Especially towards the end of its rule, the Khmer Rouge became extremely paranoid.  Anyone who was seen as a dissident, or associated with a dissent was killed.  They killed members of their own party.  Women, children and even babies were brutally executed.

Prison Camps and Killing Fields

This historical backdrop brings me to the city tour part of my Phnom Penh orientation.  Unfortunately, this didn’t involve visits to museums and ancient structures (though there are some really amazing ones in Cambodia).  It involved visits to sites of violence and mass killing. 

Following our first day of orientation, my new friends and I visited the nearby genocide museum called S21.  S21 is a former school turned prison camp and torture compound during the Khmer Rouge rule.  It’s walking distance from our volunteer house.  The next day, we continued the history lesson with a visit to one of the killing fields just outside of city limits.  It’s just one of hundreds of locations where Cambodians were taken to be executed by the hundreds and thousands.  

When coming across these places in my travels, I’ve often chosen not to take pictures of these places out of respect.  I took pictures here.  I’m not quite sure why.  Maybe because the history is more recent, and it felt important to document and remember it somehow.  Or maybe because I’m frustrated more than a little angry that I never learned about what happened here in any of my schooling. Not one factoid of information.  Never. 

  • S21
  • A row of Prison Cells
  • These rooms were reserved for torturing inmates

The US played a large role here.  No, we didn’t commit mass genocide of our ‘own’ people.  But we bombed a country for a war they weren’t involved in, and killed plenty of innocent people.  We helped lay the groundwork for what came next, and then abandoned Cambodia in its time of need.

  • Rules prisoners had to abide by, including “while getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all”

We teach American school kids about the evil Nazis, and the atrocities of the Holocaust, but not about our own mistakes.  And certainly not about a bunch of non-white people that died on the other side of the world.  In the end, it wasn’t the US that helped Cambodia stopped the genocide.  It was the Vietnamese.  And even after the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, the US and many other European countries still recognized the Khmer Rouge as the rightful leadership of Cambodia for an incredible 10 more years (!!).  The Khmer Rouge sat on the UN until the early 1990’s. 

  • The killing fields today look much more peaceful

Just to drive the point home, here’s a picture from the internet of the killing fields in the late 70’s.  

How can we learn from our past, how can we ensure history doesn’t repeat itself, if we don’t admit our mistakes and talk about them with the next generation??

It pisses me off.  

A More Positive Note

It’s beyond unfortunate that such places make up the history of country with such a rich and lustrous culture like Cambodia.  A country that built the beyond amazing Angkor Wat a thousand years ago, that is equally known for it’s vast empires, and awe inspiring temples is also known for mass genocide. 

Human history is complicated.  I continue to be amazed at both the tendency for history to maddeningly repeat itself, as well as the incredible resiliency of the human race.  Life goes on.  I guess because it has to.  Cambodia today is still a country stricken by extreme poverty, government corruption, and challenges.  But visiting now, I honestly feel much safer here than I do walking around DC.  I never get verbally harassed, I rarely see any cases of public drunkenness (except for foreigners), and people are generally friendly and helpful.   

In closing, I feel the need to leave a more positive picture of Cambodia.  The other side of its history.  This is a picture of Angkor Wat from my visit to Siem Reap in Cambodia last year.  It’s a breathtaking site, has a fascinating history, and I highly recommend a visit. 

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