Powerful Phnom Penh
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2005
1
19
124
Trip End
Mar 13, 2006
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Saturday, May 7, 2005
Martin and family at dinner
. Amy didn't blink, grabbed her bag and almost pushed the sign to the ground that was an obvious attempt at a roadblock, and soon we were free. As pride welled up inside me about what she had just done, I had to stop and laugh at the scene.We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to a different guest house, and instantly became friends with him. His name is Martin, and we had him pick us up the next day and take us around. Our first stop was the Killing Fields, where the mass graves of slaughtered Cambodian people were found due to the attempted genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and their demonic leader, Pol Pot. The scene was stunning and is hard to explain. The graves are still indented in the ground, and there is a museum of skulls there. Pictures could hardly do it justice and just walking there conjured up memories of being at Hitler's Birkenau death camp at Auschwitz, Poland.
Martin then took us to the Tuol Sleng (S21) prison camp back in Phnom Penh. This is where many Cambodian people were held in jail before being sent to the killing fields. We stayed for about 2 hours and read about all the atrocities that occurred there. There was a picture of Pol Pot in one of the rooms, and someone had written "Red Demon" on his neck.
After the museum, Martin offered to take us back to his home to meet his family, and we accepted without hesitation. He led us through the slummed area to his shanty-type house where he, his wife, and two daughters lived. We were amazed how little they had and yet how much more they had in comparison to their neighbors 5 feet away. Martin routinely uses the money he is able to make to help out the people in his village in any way he can. We stayed and talked with him about his life, family, faith, and many other subjects for about an hour there as we played with the neighborhood kids. Then we took his family out to dinner and had a wonderful time. We will never forget Martin, his kids, and the village he lives in as that was one of the most powerful and rewarding experiences we've had to date. We experienced much of the reality of the true Cambodian experience, albeit only for a day so far, but knew that we had made connection with him when he gave us his email address to stay in touch for the future.
A few other items of interest we have learend, mostly due to the attempted genocide:
1. In 1979 after the executions were over only 300 people with higher education degrees (we are unclear if this is high school or college completion) were left alive in the whole country. They were all put into government jobs, so this left the country with close to no one to teach or provide medical care in the whole country. And this is only 25 years ago, so there are few people now with any education.
2. Out of 47,000 current teachers, only 50% of them had reached the 5th grade, less than 1 % had reached the 11th grade.
3. 69% of the people over 15 years old are illiterate and only 2% of kids born today will graduate from the 11th grade.
We struggle with questioning how Cambodia can prepare for their people for the future when there is no one here to teach or medically treat the people? There is no easy answer.
