May 29, 2004

Today was one of those days that you’re really not sure about. I awoke at 6am with more lariam induced nightmares, but my day began abuzz regardless with the curiosity of still being in this new place. Our first ride by motorbike took us to Capitol Guesthouse for our tour. On the way, I was delighted by all I saw particularly a gentleman who worked diligently on the sidewalk carving a Buddha from stone. Swerving in and out of traffic wasn’t the frightening experience I had expected; instead, I found myself calm in light of the whole thing, perhaps because it didn’t seem other drivers were too upset by the matter either. There was a begging monk outside a restaurant. Having taken a vow of poverty, they must beg for food and Buddhists are supposed to give them what they need. I gave money to a young boy begging for the monks. It was a peculiar scene, but oddly gratifying. It is easy to see how this would shape the value system of the Cambodian people. Before I had time to reflect further, we were loaded onto to our bus for Cheoung Ek, the Killing Fields.

As I looked out the bus window, I could see the urban Phnom Penh slowly transform. What I previously classified as poverty didn’t hold a candle to what I was seeing. I expect these scenes to get worse before they get better. Signs for different political parties and outdoor barber shops were my immediate fascination, but I was equally distracted at the landscape surrounding. Houses on stilts over dry, cracked earth, drought where there should be rice paddies, and polluted rivers filled with invasive plants. People tried to sell what they could on the street. The morning drive allowed me to see so many wonderful things. Monks begged from the poor, and I watched with a humbled awe at the poorest of people giving these monks food, out of their own families mouths, but that seems to be the way and it is indeed beautiful. As we moved into the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the road changed first, or at least that’s what I noticed first. Uneven pavement to the bumpy dirt road, things seemed to change both gradually and suddenly- an odd paradox.

Although I didn’t think it possible, people seemed to grow increasingly poorer. Sitting on their makeshift porches doing so many things, but instead of wallowing, there were smiles and laughter. There were unhappy faces certainly, but maybe I’m always looking for hope and those smiles, the laughter, and children playing reminded me of the importance of life. Passing more sights than I can even recall, we finally arrived at Cheoung Ek.

We were not met by the expected reverent silence but instead by begging children. It was hard to bring one’s self to focus with persistence of these beggars. The pagoda in the distance, the central object at this place seemed modest but at the same time, stunningly beautiful. I think the overall simplicity was highlighted by spires of intricate carving. All of it seemed surreal. Browns, barren landscapes, and this pagoda- quiet and inviting. However, the peace was a ruse, for the truth is that this pagoda is home to the spirits of so many senselessly murdered by the Khmer Rouge. I purchased a lotus flower to give as an offering and listened to our guide tell the story. Without feeling, I learned the abridged history of Cheoung Ek and the fate of those who came here. Thousands of people were taken by truckload to be beaten and murdered. Blindfolded and with their hands tied behind them, they were led to Cheoung Ek to unknowingly meet their deaths. The pagoda houses over 8000 skulls of victims from the mass graves. The top tier of the 15 tiers has other bones and under the bottom tier, a pile of clothes from the victims. The door was open so I walked in and was uncomfortably close to the dead. While each tier is boxed in with Plexiglas, the bottom two tiers have a panel missing from each. That, in combination with the open door on the pagoda perplexed me. I later learned that this is so the spirits of these dead could come and go as they please. Were it my spirit, I’d go as far away as possible and never return. Literally face to face with these skulls was a macabre and sobering experience. Cracks in the skulls where these people had been bludgeoned to death by axes, hammers, and other objects was sickening. Some skulls still had teeth in them, and they were piled up, empty eye sockets staring at you, and all you can do is stand here helpless knowing you were too late to save them.

Beyond the pagoda, worn paths around pits, dozens of mass graves, where people had walked amongst the remains of such horror was incomprehensible. The haphazard and incomplete fashion of Cambodian excavation made me realize that I wasn’t treading on a path, I was treading on graves. Horrifying at the least. As we stood with our guide, children played all around. I was mortified that the killing fields are a poor child’s playground. Looking around, the graves themselves had been overgrown with weeds and seemed to attract butterflies, of all things. Trying to separate the busyness of the place, I found myself in a swirl and concentrated on a single item, a large tree with a plaque. The tree was used to kill children. Khmer Rouge soldiers would take a child by its feet and swing it into the tree until it died. Now, under the shade of this large tree, children played. Next to the tree, a fenced off gravesite of the mass grave of hundreds of women found buried naked. I was overwhelmed by all of it, and beside me, two small dirty children with worn dirty clothes and no shoes were begging. They would murmur “One, two, three smile” as it were so rehearsed, so I took a picture but there was no smile.

We walked further to another pit where I could see bones and clothes exposed, it was nauseating. We paused by a palm tree where we learned that the palm bark was often used as a crude blade to kill more innocents. In the distance, a large red gate, the entrance to a school. I could see children in their uniforms- laughing, running, and playing all within sight of the pagoda and the pits. Under a pavilion, we saw photos and read descriptions but I couldn’t concentrate. There were about eight children from 4-12 years old, sitting under it, and nearby, a small girl peered from the other side of the barbed wire fence with her palm outstretched. I talked with our guide some, her mother is a survivor. She was a schoolteacher but lied to the Khmer Rouge to save her life, but her sister of 4 died of starvation in the countryside. I have yet to hear a story without loss, it seems as if everyone was touched by the Khmer Rouge atrocities. Before we turned to leave, I noticed a long boat under a shed, housed at the killing fields. Each year there are boat races, and this particular boat for the village of Cheoung Ek has won two years in a row, their banners proudly hanging. Further, cows and chickens found their homes on these grounds, unaware of the grievous history. IN light of the fact that Cheoung Ek is a wasteland, a site of horrific proportions, there were so many signs of life. Children played and laughed because the Khmer Rouge did not win, young chicks followed their mother around the pagoda, a pregnant woman selling lotus flowers, and butterflies of all colors everywhere. Despite the shadow of death at Cheoung Ek, the persistence of life remains a hallmark in man’s struggle to overcome that which is so inhuman.

Our long drive back, the same things replayed in reverse as we made our way to Tuol Sleng prison. We arrived and stepped off the bus, immediately assaulted by the heat and an onslaught of motorbike boys and beggars. Inside, we began a solemn tour of this former high school. Graves in the old courtyard. The first building with individual rooms held single prisoners. The bed frames and leg irons were still there where people had been chained to their beds and tortured. A photo on the wall showed one man splayed open on his bed. The next rooms were much the same. A photo of a pregnant woman whose unborn child was cut from her womb while she was still alive, after her other child had been bludgeoned to death, horrifying. Could someone really do this to someone else?

On the way to the second building, gallows where prisoners were hung upside down, interrogated, and beaten until they lost consciousness, only to be revived by dunking their heads in large clay pots filled with excrement, and the process repeated. The second building mimicked the first and looking across the courtyard, I could see the remains of a playground. Further, the third building held detention cells, small and made of brick, with leg chains still attached to the brick wall. Holes had been punched through these former classrooms to make long rows of cells for prisoners, all innocents. On the second floor of this building, wooden cells replaced brick ones. Inside, an endless stream of empty prisons whose walls hold so much pain and memory. On one end, an old blackboard had the prison rules written in Khmer and French. At the end of the second floor, graffiti reflected visitors feelings about this place. Some asked 'why?' or pleaded 'bear witness' while others had deeper messages. On the way down the staircase and under, there was more graffiti: 'human beings can be so despicable' or 'nunca mas' but I was most taken with this one: 'Watch out for this formula. Take away I. Their weapons II. Their freedom III. Their dignity IV. Their lives.'

The final building was confusion though simply enough designed. Art depicted torture and abuse alongside the instruments themselves and faces of the lost. The second building I had been in held thousands of photos of all the prisoners who entered Tuol Sleng. Thousands of eyes looking at you, empty expressionless faces knowing their fate, pleading for help, but twenty five years later, I was too late to save them. Still, eyes on you as you walked around the building, always watching you, like the eyes of begging children in the street, but instead of begging for money, these faces were pleading for their lives though seemingly resigned to their fate. The second floor of the last building were photos of a different sort- perpetrators who had died a natural death unpunished for their crimes. A room of bystanders asking for justice but reflecting their own guilt. Finally, a forensic room titled 'The bones cannot find peace until the truth they hold in themselves has been revealed.' Evidence of the atrocities awaiting a trial that doesn't seem to come. Then, an interview with a tour guide, more complexity and contradictions I have yet to sort out.

The day was over, ending just as the others have ended and begun, with motorbike boys trying to carry me and children begging for money, that is the static of Phnom Penh, a never-ending dynamic with so many new things happening every day. Yet, the constant of Cambodia breaks my heart.