A Day of Sadness

Shackles from S21

Our last day in Cambodia was the hardest, even though our physical labor was done. We took a bus to Phnom Penh, where we visited the S21 prison and the Choeung Ek killing fields.

I didn't expect the day to affect me the way it did. I already knew that a million and a half people were executed by the Khmer Rouge in a four-year period, and that thousands of them were imprisoned and tortured at the S21 prison.

Tiny cells on the first floor of S21, formerly a school, were built of brick.

On the second floor, cells were even smaller and built of wood,
to accommodate the swelling prison population.

On the third floor, cells were dispensed with,
and prisoners were chained to the wall in numbered rows. 

I already knew that nearly 9,000 bodies were discovered at Choeung Ek in mass graves.

Depressions in the ground show where mass graves were excavated at Choeung Ek.

I already knew that mounds of skulls and bones were displayed in the site's stupa.

Photos by Everywhere Once

I even knew about how prisoners were tortured and babies were murdered, because I'd read about Cambodia before leaving home, as part of Kirkwood's study-abroad class.

Executioners held babies by their feet and smashed them against this tree
before swiveling to toss them in the mass grave to the right,
now fenced and roofed as a memorial.

But what I didn't know was that our tour guide for the day, Mr. Kim Boral, would himself be a survivor of the genocide. And that he would be exactly my age.

I had imagined what it would have been like if I'd been born in Cambodia rather than in the US. But when Boral told his story, I didn't have to imagine anymore; I could just listen.

Boral's family lived in Phnom Penh. His father was a doctor who spoke four languages, which made him a target of the communist Khmer Rouge regime. When Pol Pot took over in 1975, Boral's father was arrested, and Boral never saw him again. He later heard that his father was executed and buried deep in the jungle with other prisoners, but he and his family have never found the location.

I knew that my own father, an engineer and corporate executive, would have met the same fate. My dad had died almost exactly a year before I met Boral. He had seemed far too young when he died, and I was missing him terribly on my trip to Cambodia. But I'd had him forty-three years longer than Boral had had his father--and I didn't have to wonder about how he'd been tortured, where (and if) he'd been buried.

After his father's arrest, Boral and the rest of his family were forced to evacuate Phnom Penh on foot. He was four years old. His uncle and grandfather took turns carrying him on their backs.

They were marched to a labor camp in the country where the family was split up--his mother with the women, his grandfather and uncle with the men, and Boral with the children. Even as a four-year-old, he was forced to work all day in appalling conditions. His job was to collect manure from swampy pits, to be dried and burned as fuel. Boral pulled up his pants to show us the scars on his legs from abscesses he developed walking all day in raw sewage.

Boral shows us injuries to his head and legs from his time at a Khmer Rouge labor camp.

There was never enough food. When his mother or uncle was able to exchange a few words with him, they instructed him how to forage for morning-glory leaves and other plants to avoid starvation. They also told him what not to eat. At Choeung Ek, Boral showed us a tree with fruit that will kill a man in two hours.

By the time the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, most of Boral's family had died in the labor camp of disease or starvation. He and his mother survived, but he mentioned many times how his mother had suffered since then, from depression and PTSD.

I asked Boral why he wanted to be a tour guide--why he would willingly subject himself to revisiting these scenes of torture, imprisonment, execution, and inhumanity over and over again. He said that he wants foreigners to know what happened in Cambodia. He doesn't want the genocide to be forgotten.

At the end of our tour, I complimented Boral on his English. "You must have gotten your skill with languages from your dad," I said. He smiled and replied humbly, "No, I'm not as good as him. He spoke four languages. I only speak three."

A Day of Fun

We finished building the classroom a day early, so we were able to have fun for a day before heading to Phnom Penh. We visited Phnom Kulen National Park, where we saw two important religious and historical sites--the River of a Thousand Lingas (Kbal Spean) and the giant Reclining Buddha of Preah Ang Thom.

The River of a Thousand Lingas is a carved riverbed from the 11th century. The Hindu god Shiva is typically represented by a linga, or phallus symbol, that represents his generative, creative energy. The waters of Kbal Spean are considered holy by Hindus.

The carved riverbed of Kbal Spean--"River of a Thousand Lingas"

In the temple at the top of Kulen Mountain, Hindu and Buddhist traditions intermingle. The temple was built as a Hindu shrine, and Hindu religious practices still take place there. But the site is now best known for a giant statue of the reclining Buddha, built in the 16th century when the location was converted to Buddhism.

Entrance to the Phnom Kulen temple

Statue of the Hindu deity Ganesha

In this religious rite, worshippers pour water over the linga (phallic symbol)
that represents the Hindu god Shiva, then splash the water on their faces.

View from the temple

The reclining Buddha

From Preah Ang Thom, we headed to the Phnom Kulen waterfall to go swimming. On the hot sunny day, the cool water in the pool at the bottom of the falls felt like paradise. Because it is the low season for tourism, the falls were not crowded. I rented an inner tube for a dollar and floated through the pool with the water of the falls raining down on me.

Phom Kulen waterfall. Picture by Bayon Tabi Tours
(http://www.bayontabitour.com/attractions.html?name=Phnom-Kulen-Waterfall)

At the end of the day, we sang karaoke Cambodian-style. Our tour guide, Prak Phallin, had unwisely told me that he enjoys singing karaoke with his friends. I got him to promise he'd take the whole GEN team to a local karaoke club on our last day. He even persuaded the owner of the establishment to give us the rate for locals rather than tourists. We were joined in a private karaoke room by members of the Global Heritage team: Dee turned out to have an amazing voice, while Irene and Sokphea taught us all to dance Cambodian style. Phallin made good on his promise and sang several songs for us in Khmer, in a lovely tenor voice. Plus, it was Laura's birthday, and the Global Heritage team surprised her with a cake. Darren and Carlos entertained us with 80's hard rock songs, while Steph, Miranda, and the two Lauras sang the Lizzy McGuire soundtrack. I sang too, poorly but enthusiastically.  It was an amazing way to round out our stay in Siem Reap.

Photo by Dee Mosca

Phallin in action. (Sorry, no time to focus, having too much fun!)

Good-bye to Romdeng

Our last day at the school, we arrived to find barefoot children playing and dancing on the fresh cement floor that we had poured the day before.

At that point, all that was left was painting. We sanded the cement walls to remove loose particles of sand and then painted them the same yellow as the rest of the school.

Henry at work

The school's principal wanted a plaque to commemorate our work. Luckily Darren is a tattoo artist, so he used his painting skills to freehand the name of the project and the initials of all four schools onto a wood plank. The owner of Global Heritage, Irene Wong, arrived in time to help with the finishing touches.

Darren and Irene complete the sign,
while Dee's dog supervises

Photo by Henry Sim

We celebrated the completion of the project with lots of photos, and fresh coconut water from a coconut tree at the school. 

And just like that, our time at Romdeng Primary School was over. I'm going to miss my new friends.

Hmmm I recognize those glasses ...

They borrowed my phone for a selfie.

The kids head home.

Here's a video slideshow of the whole construction project, from Global Heritage Tours.

The Age of Angkor

On Sunday when the skilled workers had the day off, we visited three sites from the Angkor Empire. This was the Empire that preceded modern-day Cambodia, from the 9th to the 15th century. After the capital was moved to Phnom Penh, these sites remained abandoned for four centuries and were overtaken by jungle before being rediscovered by French explorers. These awe-inspiring structures are now once again able to be viewed by visitors from around the globe.

Our first stop was the walled city of Angkor Thom, the capital of the Angkor Empire. We crossed a moat via a causeway lined with giant stone carved figures, gods on the left side and demons on the right. I felt like I was on a movie set for an ancient saga. The gods and demons were characters from a famous Hindu epic, the churning of the ocean of milk.

Carved gods "churning the sea of milk" along the causeway leading to Angkor Thom

We entered through one of four enormous stone gates beneath a tower containing four enormous stone faces. "Enormous stone" describes nearly everything in Angkor Thom. Just as with the ancient pyramids, the labor required to bring the stones to the site and erect these structures was awe-inspiring. Our tour guide explained that the stones were pulled in by elephants and water buffalo, then lifted up using earthen ramps.

Gate to Angkor Thom. At the top are giant faces looking four directions.

The only elephant we saw at Angkor Thom was hauling tourists, not massive stones.
Cambodia does still have herds of wild elephants, but not in the districts we visited.

The Buddhist faces on the gate tower right next to the Hindu gods and demons on the causeway illustrate the close relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism in Cambodia. Both religions are integral to Cambodia's history and current culture, and both came here from India. Every temple we visited had been converted from Hindu to Buddhist or Buddhist to Hindu, or both, at least once over the course of its history, as different kings came to power. Cambodians continue to honor both of these traditions.

At the center of the city is Bayon Temple, built as a Buddhist shrine in the year 1200.  It has 54 towers, each of which features four stone faces like the ones on the entrance gate--216 faces in all!

Bayon Temple

Nose to nose

Next we visited the temple of Ta Prohm. This temple is fascinating not just because Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed there, but because many of the enormous trees that invaded the structure were left in place during the recovery and restoration. It is a place important not only to Buddhists and Hindus, tourists and Hollywood, but also to the jungle.

Finally, we visited Cambodia's most famous temple, Angkor Wat. This massive, magnificent complex is the largest religious monument in the world. I can't even begin to describe the beauty and enormity of this place. At the center are five iconic stone towers, the tallest in the center, with four others surrounding it. We climbed to the top on steep, narrow, stone steps, and then the jungle spread out before us for miles. (Our tour guide mentioned several times that no building in Siem Reap is permitted to be taller than Angkor Wat, so this really is the highest point in the province.)

Really, I can't describe this experience. You'll have to go and see it for yourself.

Part of our crew--dwarfed by the size of this ancient swimming pool

The central tower

Statue of Buddha, draped with robe

A view down from the peak

Watching a storm approach from the top of the temple

Days at the school

For two weeks, we went to the school nearly every day to work on the classroom. The building design and the materials were very simple: brick walls about a meter high, plastered with cement, and topped with a wooden lattice to let in light and air. The floor was also made of cement.

We spent most of our time hauling buckets of rocks, sand, water, and cement from the staging area to the classroom, since there was not even a wheelbarrow to help with this task. The only power tool I ever noticed was a circular saw. Cement was mixed with a shovel, on the packed dirt of the school courtyard. There were never enough buckets or hammers or other tools for all the volunteers, so we worked in shifts. That suited us fine since the work was hard and the weather was very hot. While one group of volunteers dug holes for the foundation or laid bricks, the others could spend time resting or playing with the children.

I didn't work on this wall, but mine didn't look much prettier.
Luckily, this will all be covered by cement plaster.

Carlos has been working hard!

Yenny, Mani, and Kevin take a break.

The school had virtually no playground equipment--only a single ball in a school of 193 pupils. But the children's favorite game required only a string. Two children would hold the string parallel to the ground, as if in a limbo contest. The object was exactly the opposite of the limbo, however; lines of children tried to jump over the string as it was raised progressively higher. When it became too high to jump over, the children would switch to cartwheels. There seemed to be no penalty for touching the string, as long as the contestant's feet went over the string and came down on the other side. We saw this game played many times a day.

A girl cartwheels over a string held by two classmates.

We had brought small gifts for the children, which were received with great excitement. Kids swarmed around me when I handed out Jolly Ranchers. The Canadian group had brought stickers, which the children stuck proudly on their clothes or foreheads. For people who have so little, even the smallest gifts were an excitement.

The Jolly Ranchers were a hit.

The children never ceased to be fascinated with us, and I never got tired of their smiling faces. One day we taught them to play the hokey pokey. Another day they had fun taking selfies with my phone. Every day they gave high-fives and hugs. I'm glad to be able to leave them with a new classroom, as a thank you for their gracious welcome.

The reason we're here