One Month in Cambodia!

This past weekend was quite eventful.

On Thursday, I started to feel under the weather, and by Friday, I had developed a cold. Luckily, it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t go on the “field trip” that Peace Corps had planned for us on Saturday.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we took a 2 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We went straight to Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, a school that had been converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. This, however, was no ordinary detention center: people were brought in, tortured until they confessed to crimes that they didn’t commit, and then killed. Thousands of people passed through S-21 in the 3 years that it was open, but only 7 made it out alive (although more have apparently come out of the woodwork).

It was a really raw experience, because, structurally, it has been left as it was, for the most part, when it was deserted in January 1979. There was still blood on the ceiling in one room. We saw the devices that had been used to torture and kill people, and photographs of the corpses as they were found on the day that the Vietnamese discovered the prison. In some of the rooms where the Khmer Rouge had destroyed the cells before leaving, there pictures of all of the people who spent their last moments in S-21. I was handling it all pretty well (for me) until we came across a display of the clothes of those that had been killed, and there was a child’s dress. That sight hit me pretty hard. 

Sorry it's blurry. That small white thing is the dress.

After our tour, we were able to meet two of the survivors of the prison. I bought a book from each of them, and I’m looking forward to reading their stories, as hard as it will probably be. 

I didn't know whether or not to smile.

Once we were done at S-21, we drove about 15km to the Killing Fields, another incredibly raw experience. We were each given a set of headphones, so we were able to take the audio tour at our own pace, and really process what was in front of us at each stop. I saw a couple of mass graves, as well as the tree against which the Khmer Rouge soldiers would smash babies to kill them. There was a Stupa of the bones of many of those who had been buried, with layers 2-9 just filled with skulls. People of all ages were buried there.

It was a long and emotionally trying day, but it also emphasized the history we will be facing as we try to enact change in the communities in which we will be placed.

After we got back to our villages, a group of us hung out for a bit to decompress. It was fun, and a good end to a rather depressing (but important) day.

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Sunday was a great day. A bunch of us went for an early morning bike ride, turning randomly when we felt like it, and we ended up biking through these gorgeous rice paddies. We also came across a couple of pagodas as we adventured. Words won’t do this justice, so I’ll just let you see for yourself.

The group that went biking: Gianni, Andrea, Joel, Rachel, Wes, me, Nico, and Evalynn. Josie took the picture.

In the last pagoda we stopped at, we heard really loud music. Almost everyone else wanted to turn back, but I wanted to investigate, so Rachel and Joel came with me, and we ended up finding, of all things, a bunch of kids jumping on two trampolines in their front yard, where their mom had a store. Of course we all wanted to jump, so we asked, and we ended up jumping around on the trampolines with these kids (who had awesome moves) for a full hour and a half straight. It was an experience I never thought I would have while in Cambodia. I have no pictures, or I would upload them.

After that, we all biked home for lunch, and then met up at a volunteer’s house for another rousing game of volleyball. Luckily, this time, it didn’t pour. We played for over two hours and it was so much fun. After volleyball, a couple of people came over to my house to watch a movie. All in all, Sunday was an awesome day, although I didn’t get my laundry done. Oops.

Last night, I finally bought and set up a mouse trap – a glue mouse trap. Within 5 minutes of settling into bed after setting the trap last night, I heard a panicked squeaking coming from the vicinity of the trap. I quickly checked under my bed, and the mouse had gotten caught. My family was asleep by then, so I had to go the whole night listening to the mouse trying to get free. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was to bring the trap down to my homestay dad. I thought he would kill the mouse, but instead, he took a pair of pliers and started peeling the live mouse from the trap, killing it in the process. I kept turning away as he was doing it and my homestay mom kept laughing at my reaction.

After that wonderful morning ordeal, I did some of the laundry I had neglected to do yesterday, not realizing that a rain storm was on the way. I went to class and halfway through the morning, there was a downpour. Luckily, I returned home after class to find that my laundry had dried most of the way anyway.

All in all, my adventure seems to be becoming routine. Let me know if you want me to keep posting pictures!