Best Day

So I am trying to get entirely caught up before today (Tuesday) because tonight we are going to sleep near the Thai border and I’m obviously not bringing my computer but today is probably going to be one of the most intense days of my recent life, and maybe a very defining one too. In other words, I’d like to knock out yesterday so that when I get back tomorrow, I wont be three days behind.

 Well first, I am SO happy Daddy that you are following me and your emails are just adorable, and I am being smart about the food. I didn’t eat the seven hour un-refrigerated chicken yesterday when we finally got food. I just had rice even though we were all hungry. So I am using my judgment. And last night some of the girls went out with our professor to go drink snake’s blood, but I did not (mostly because I was exhausted, but I heeded your warning any way.)

So yesterday we left at 7 am, went to DC-Cam, got in the van and made a two hour trek to a northern province. We finally turned down this dirt road that was lined with shacks on stilts. We turned into the town’s gathering area before breaking up into our groups. One of the girls was really sick, so Jessica went with another group so all groups would have three people (normally our group is four). So Lauren, Christina, Kyeang (our interpreter) and I set off down the dirt road to meet a PERPETRATOR. We turned down a road where a whole bunch of men at this house were playing cards and Kyeang called out to the guy. The man who responded said who we were after no longer lived there, but they were all quite tipsy from the tree sap of the palm trees. So after a few minutes of confusion, the man who told us our perpetrator no longer lived there turned out to be the perpetrator. He changed his name. Nice and confusing right. He took us to the back of his home where we spoke to him for over an hour. It was not as difficult as anticipated to interview and speak with him; in fact he was quite willing to talk to us. His parents starved to death while he was working for the Khmer Rouge, so justice for him and so many like him is just impossible. He joined the Khmer Rouge because he was so mad at Americans for dropping the bombs. Then his parents died and in 1979 (after the fall of the KR), he joined the Vietnamese forces to fight the KR. During the KR, he was a soldier on the Vietnam border before being moved to Tuol Sleng prison. He says he only recalls one memorable death he witnessed: a white person being burned alive.

That’s all I have to say about him right now because yesterday was probably one of the greatest days I can remember, and interviewing was not the highlight.

After the interview, we went back to the town meeting area because we were waiting for our other groups. Little did we know that chaos was ensuing on their parts. So these ten village children came walking in to play in the pagoda and around the area. Christina first was trying to play with them then Lauren and I joined. Made fools of ourselves. And before we knew it word had spread about the white girls, and easily forty to fifty people were there watching us entertain children for the next hour and a half of our lives. We taught the kids the hokey pokey, London bridge, Macarena, Head shoulders knees and toes, ring around the rosey, and the “American hello fist bump”. The adults were having a ball just laughing away at us. It was more amazing than words can say. Kyeang then beckoned us away to go find someone else because the other people were going to be awhile. So I gave my little boys (three in particular were just the biggest flirts and I want to bring them back with me) my giant water bottle. I figured at the time we would be meeting up with people within an hour. I was wrong.

So walking down the trail one of the little boys followed us so I ran back to him scooped him up and tickled him for awhile. He is just tooooooo cute. The children here are adorable. I will be adopting a little boy from here. That is fact.

Well its monsoon season. So the downpour started and Kyeang made us turn down a random dirt driveway and seek shelter. We just happened to turn down a driveway of a Cham Muslim family. The great grandmother was 70 and had survived the Khmer Rouge. She was willing to talk to us. Mind you, she lives less than half a mile from a perpetrator. This is quite common in Cambodia where victims and perpetrators live in the same towns. We spoke to her, her son, her daughter in law, and her granddaughter. This interview also went quite well and was just such a sad story. She lost her husband to the Lon Nol Regime (the one the US propped up) and still to this day has no idea what happened to him. She is seventy years old, which is ancient for Cambodians. Throughout the whole interview, there were two tiny kids playing eyes with us. The little girl was just precious while the boy was entirely stand off-ish. I of course had a huge crush on him but he wanted nothing to do with me. The son of the woman, he is probably 50, went and climbed a coconut tree and brought us all coconuts the size of our skulls. Literally. These are not Hawaiian traditional coconuts. These are huge. Enormous. And this is quite normal in Cambodia, the people are so giving. They are beyond poor, yet they give each one of us a giant coconut. 

So then the SUV showed up with one of the groups. They had the food. We sat in the back of the SUV and ate, but then we heard that the group that had our bus was at least 45 minutes away still. So we headed back to the family where they welcomed us and gave us still more coconut. Then we began playing with the little girl. I was swinging her in the hammock. After awhile, the boy (in the picture) decided I was harmless enough. He tried to flip the hammock and I scooped him up. This was the beginning of our love affair. His name is Rafin, Fin for short. To me, he is little monkey (Con sva). I taught him how to use Lauren's camera while he was sitting on his dad's motorbike. Probably the cutest photo shoot ever. We had a ball together all afternoon.

His story is quite sad. He is an orphan. His mom died when he was one year old. His dad abandoned him to marry another woman. A French (white person, maybe not french) doctor came to adopt him but he refused to go because kids here are very afraid of white people because they have never seen the light skin. The little boy thus wouldn't talk to us at first because he thought we had come to take him away. When we assured him that we were harmless and he finally believed it, Fin was more than happy to be a little flirt for the rest of the day. He was just so precious. I would have adopted him if I could have. Not that you can tell in this picture, but he is missing his front four teeth and just has the most precious, beautiful smile. 

Kyeang finally told us we had to leave, and after a long, sad goodbye, we began trekking down the dirt road again towards our bus. We walked by the town area we had been earlier and the kids were still there playing London Bridge which just warmed my heart. The little guy who I loved in the early morning ran over for another American Hello fist pound. He was just such a cheeser. 

After getting back in the van and hearing about the crazy adventures of the other group (they had to go trekking through rice fields and walk a few miles with a hundred year old man who drank bunches of their colas), we headed to a high school an hour away to distribute text books. This was the strangest experience. DC-Cam has made textbooks about the KR Regime because kids here are not taught about it. Literally there was nothing in high school text books about it until 2000. The passage was 2 lines. So we got there and everyone got quiet because out of nowhere here come ten Americans. They applauded for us; quite strange. When we had sat down, boys and girls alike were taking pictures of us on their cell phones. This was the second time that day that Christina joked about feeling like a zoo animal in an enclosure.  Anyway, we helped to distribute these text books,

but only 30 kids a grade got them. It is so strange to see that. These kids were fighting over the textbooks. 

After, we stayed and talked to these high school kids who had so many questions about us, America, why we were here. It was such a funny situation. They loved practicing their English and laughing at our Khmer.  One boy told me I was very beautiful and asked me if I had a sweetheart or husband. I lied. THen told him Lauren was very single. It was just too funny. They wanted to know about skyscrapers and snow. 

All in all, a great day that I have no more time to write about. I didn't do it justice. But it was just amazing. 

Useful Khmer I learned yesterday: Love, Two Little Monkeys, Thank You, Goodbye, dance, what is your name, my name is.