Where do I start – I feel like we did so much.
Well on Monday we went to “Rubbish Mountain”. This is a slum area right outside of the city, before it had a big mountain of rubbish- but the city has now moved that farther outside of the city. So this community has now split up.
One of my team mates Stephanie came to Cambodia last year, and she worked with this community and helped out in their clinic. She had mad some great relationships with people and wanted to come back and visit.
One of my team mates Stephanie came to Cambodia last year, and she worked with this community and helped out in their clinic. She had mad some great relationships with people and wanted to come back and visit.
Steph and her two boys she worked with previously.
It was an amazing afternoon, just to visit with the kid! They are so full of life. One of the little boys took Elise’s camara- and he turned out to be quiet the photographer! I was going to post pictures of the area, but I wanted to post a picture that really did express the joy that I saw there. So I picked this kite picture, I love it and think it is so beautiful and thats how I felt about my time at Rubbish Mountain.


Kite Picture

And the photographer
Tuesday we went to Tuel Sleong also known as the s-21 prison. I already need to back up. In the 70’s Cambodia went through a genocide, a communist group, Khmer Rouge, rose up and kill over 3 million people in Cambodia. Pol Pot was a highly educated cambodian, who had studied in France. He desired to create a true agrarian society, with everyone working the land. He found anyone who was educated or associated with the former government and threat and had them imprisoned and eventually murdered. One thing that really hit me was, why we didn’t learn about this in school in the states. (side not that I could totally go off on)
I walk around with more insight on what this country has been through. Everyone I look at- if you are over the age of 30 you experienced some part of this war. Even if you weren’t alive you were affected…. A lot of families did flee but that is another experience someone is still affected by
This prison was an old high school that the Rouge took over, for holding people before sending them out of the killing fields. Mostly used for torturing people and eventually killing people.
I don’t really know how to truly describe the prison, there are four large building three floors each. Some classrooms had beds in them, some were larger, and some where slip up into around 8×3 spaces (basically closets for people to be in). There were pictures of the prisoners. It was interesting that the Regime took pictures of a lot of things- all the prisoners, ways they tortured people, and people once they had passed. It is heart wrenching. . . .

each floor has different types of room, for different types of torture.
  
Then we went to Choeng Ek, The Killing Fields. Here they had 16 mass graves excavated, with hundreds of people in them. You were brought to Choeng Ek to be killed, either by force or chemicals, you dug your own grave, your children were often murdered in front of you. It is a dark place. . .
It was hard to walk around this place, with all of it’s darkness. Or even now to post a picture to show respect to those who have past- when I feel they have been robbed of so much.
In the center of Choeng Ek a giant glass memorial was build to honor all of those that lost their lives in the Killing Fields. The glass walls reveal 17 levels of broken bones and skulls, a reminder to all of what happened there and a reminder of why it should never happen again.
Even in reading about the trails following the Khmer Rouge, the justice for them has been lost in time. They Regime was not put on trial until the last ten years, and most of the leaders like Pol Pot have died awaiting trail.
I have often thought about the injustice of this event, why didn’t anyone do anything? Where is the justice? Why didn’t any one or country say “this isn’t right!”
And I am reminded right now where is the justice for the girls in the sex trade?
why do so many traffickers all of the world go unpunished?
Are we standing up saying “this isn’t right”
But the sex trade isn’t in the past- it is going on as we speak.
I remember it. Seth went to work with the refugees during his senior year at college. it’s so unfathomable. Where would the world be without the Lord?
As I read the historical, current, and possible future tragedy of Cambodia, I am reminded of parallel events in other countries that result/resulted in similar injustice for massess of people. A prayer that helps me through hard times and one that I wish for Mere and her team follows:
Just for today I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle all my problems at once.
Just for today I will have a quiet half hour all by myself and relax.
Just for today I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe that as I give to the world, so the world will give to me.
This is my wish for you Mere.