After 8 months of preparation and over 30 hours of travel, I’ve
finally made to Cambodia. It is amazing being here all of the preparation,
every minute, every second, was worth it.
On the
first day we went to S-21, a genocide museum, and the killing fields. Cambodia
has had a very difficult past that started with a genocide lead by the Khmer
Rouge in the 1970’s. At S-21 they would torture the innocent people until they
got confessions out of them, like they were CIA spies or Russian spies, if the
confession was not what they wanted they would keep torturing the person. After
they got a confession out of that person they were taken to the killing fields.
At night the Khmer Rouge would play loud music and a diesel engine to drown out
the noise of their screams. The music kept the secrecy of what was going on in
the killing fields. They had an audio recording of what it might have sounded
like and it was haunting, it sent chills down my spine. All I could think of
was these innocent people not knowing what was going to happen next and then
they were beaten to death. It brought tears to my eyes; I just can’t comprehend
how people can do that to their own kind. All of this happened from 1975-1979
so it wasn’t that long ago, and now the killers and the victims all live together,
and that astonishes me.
Now
knowing the background of the people I feel like I can understand more of why
there is so much poverty. We arrived at the school and all the children ran towards
the tuk-tuks and were yelling hello. A girl named Sery Tom pulled my hand and
introduced herself. She was so welcoming I knew I would be able to remember her
for a lifetime. Teaching in the classrooms involves a lot of repetition, it is
read and repeat read and repeat. This is the one time out of the whole year
that they get a native English speaker that has come to teach them, so I am
glad that I can help them with their pronunciation. Today I did some manual labor
around the orphanage. I didn’t know that I could sweat so much! All of us had
sweat dripping down our faces, but at the end of the day the feeling was so rewarding
when you see the kids smiling faces and you know you what you did was for them.
I love spending the end of the day
with all of the kids. Yesterday we played a type of jump rope with some 10 year
old girls. The “rope” was like a big
rainbow loom bracelet. They would hold
the rope on top of their heads and then they would jump over the rope. This rope
was at my shoulders when the girls were only as tall as the middle of my torso,
and they were able to jump over it, it was impressive to see how high they
could jump. Today we played some volleyball and then we had a dance party. Srey
Neath, a girl who lives at the orphanage, showed us all the dance moves. It was
so much fun, it felt like all worries, pains, and problems, melted away into
thin air.
To wrap
it all up I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. All these kids have a
huge smile and when they smile at you it makes you smile almost as big as them.
I love the rewarding feeling of knowing that, I have helped even if it’s only
picking up a bottle cap or helping them pronounce ‘very’. I can’t wait for all
of the surprises the rest of the trip holds.
