I was surprised to have some company at breakfast this morning. Usually, I come downstairs to a breakfast table with just my coffee mug and my two pieces of toast awaiting me. Today, the gentleman who owns the house was having some noodles. I knew that he is a local physician, so I engaged him about the health care system in Cambodia. He speaks English quite well. We had a nice chat, but eventually the conversation lagged. That’s when I decided to ask him about his experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime.
What he described was riveting. Like everyone else in the capital city of Phnom Penh, he and his family (he was a teenager at the time) were given 72 hours by the Khmer Rouge to leave Phnom Penh with basically just the clothes on their backs. They were sent into the countryside to perform forced agricultural labor. The Khmer Rouge systematically separated family members, and he quickly lost contact with his siblings and parents. The work was hard, and there was little food provided. Many people died of starvation or diseases due to starvation. He managed to survive, but his father did not. Three years later, after the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge, he made the perilous journey back to Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge still held some towns and would ruthlessly murder travelers. For their part, the Vietnamese tenaciously guarded Phnom Penh during its rebuilding, shooting at people trying to re-enter the town. My physician friend stopped talking at this point for what seemed an eternity. He just stared at the center of the table. I didn’t know what was going on. I literally thought he might be having a stroke. He then got up and went to the refrigerator for some water. Tears were running down his face as he came back to the table. He was so overcome with emotion that he only managed a small part of the rest of his story. He described being shot at while re-entering Phnom Penh and then finding his family home already occupied by other people. At that point, he excused himself to go to work, and I had to get ready for my tuk tuk ride to the Riverkids site. I thanked him for sharing his story.
Even though I didn’t hear his full story, it did occur to me that his story probably rivaled that of Dith Pran, the journalist whose escape from the Khmer Rouge death camps was documented in the movie, “The Killing Fields”. It also occurred to me that there are probably thousands of similarly dramatic and heart-wrenching stories among Cambodian survivors of the regime. For now, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choueng Ek Killing Fields effectively relate the gruesome and horrible truths about life under the Khmer Rouge. Some day, I’d like more attention paid to inspirational stories like this gentleman’s: his ability to survive the regime, rebuild his life, and eventually become a physician and much needed source of health care in a country which essentially executed all its doctors just 35 years ago. That’s the kind of story I’d like to hear more of. Who knows? I have a couple days left here, perhaps he and I will share breakfast again, and I can hear the rest of his story.
dougincambodia 