First, the past.
You generally need to know about the past to any make sense of the present. So, instead of telling you what I am doing I am going to tell things that I have discovered about the past here, things that happened to this family.
When the soldiers came and emptied Siem Reap they were marched for ten days zig -zagging across the country to disorientate them. They were together for a short time and then their father was taken away to be executed. Being a teacher or a doctor, even wearing glasses marked you out as being educated and so you were killed. They found out afterwards that he was tortured for three days and ended up confessing to being a CIA agent which shows how desperate he became.
Ma was taken to another camp and made to work, as were the children but in a different camp. The KR knew that it was easier to 're-educate' children, especially if they were apart from their parents. There were 6 girls and 1 boy in the Ly family. Ponheary was the eldest at 13 and there was a baby of only a few months old. The children had to dig ditches. The baby had to be kept quiet as any troublesome children were always killed. Fortunately, the headman of the village the kids were taken to owed a debt to Mr Ly. He had taken penicillin to the village during an outbreak of something that was making people blind. This man kept a quiet watch on the children and gave them extra small things to eat. Ponheary talks about the day she killed her baby sister. They had managed to get a tiny amount of flat rice. This is rice that is pounded until the moisture is taken out of so that it keeps longer. It is often used while travelling. It is then boiled and reconstituted. Ponheary fed some to the baby who was starving, as they all were. It swelled in her stomach and as she had not eaten for so long and she died. Imagine carrying that guilt with you. Ponheary was 13, she did what she thought was best, noone could ever blame her. And yet she talks about the day she killed her baby sister.
Towards the end of the KR regime their mother was beaten up because the soldiers knew that someone was protecting her children because they all remained too healthy but she refused to name him and showed ignorance and so the mans life was saved and there was another debt. When the Vietnamese came to overthrow the KR, Siem Reap became safer when in the countryside there was even more killing. The headman hid the children in rice sacks (they are all tiny!) and, travelling at night only brought theem back to Siem Reap and left them here, on the site of their former home. They did not se him again until last year when he just showed up at the house.
During the genocide some things happened to the children that are so bad that I cannot write about them here. What I can say is that it is an absolute miracle that any of them are here today. Ponheary , at one time had to dig a grave and had her head bashed by a shovel. Unbelievably, she came to three days later n a killing field. Imagine being tied to a tree and having millions of ants set upon you because you have been found to have a tiny bit of root to chew on in the band of your skirt. Those are the things that I can tell you.
Lori tells me that she once witnessed an argument between Ponheary and the youngest sister Marina, it escalated out of all proportion and Lori was at a loss.. She asked Ponheary what it was really about. She said that during the genocide,when they were starving and whenever they had any free time they used to play a game about food. They would pretend that they were sitting at a table and it was covered in wonderful foods of every description. They would go into great detail about how everything looked and tasted and one day Marina had a whole chicken and she wouldn't give any to Ponheary. To this day it causes a problem Two starving children fantasising about a pretend chicken. It is heartbreaking.
Marina told me that when they came back their house, on this plot, was very old. A typical Cambodian house made of wood on stilts but, because of it's age, it was twisted sideways. The KR emptied Siem Reap, blew up the banks, schools and hospitals and changed the temples into re-education centres but largely left the houses untouched. THey had a vegetable garden and sold produce in the road. The occupation years were brutal but there was not the mass killing that the KR had instigated. There was terrible fighting every night and they dug a shelter in the ground to hide from it. Ma was especially fearful for Dara, the only boy, because the Vietnamese would round up all the men and send them off to cut wood at the border with Vietnam. This area was heavily mined and Marina said that if you saw your name on the list of people to go you knew you would never come back. Dara spent most of his time hiding in the lavatory.
Thus, the family managed to survive but the living was horribly tough and very dangerous until the Vietnamese pulled out after their funding from Russia ended and the UN arrived. Because of their secretly learned language skills the family were able to help the UN officials and start to earn some real money. i.e. dollars. Gradually, brick by brick they started to build a proper house. Marina said that her Mother was so attached to the wooden house they had it moved to the back of the plot and slowly, slowly were able to build a new house. It took years just for one floor to be built. Her mother could not accept that her husband was dead and went to astrologers to try to find out where he was.
And so life became safe about ten years ago but still very hard. Marina told me that they spent nothing ofor anything extra in their lives just the basics of rice and maybe a little fish just so everything could go to making them a decent house.
Step by step is a phrase hat Ponheary uses all the time when she talks about how she is trying to ensure that the poorest children have access to education, clean water and basic healthcare. Step by step is how the Ly family rebuilt their lives and step by step is how we are helping the disenfranchised children of Cambodia to see that there is another way.
I have many things to tell you. About te schools I have been to, about my school and classes, about the orphanage that is a place of such joyfulness. .Many other things. But, there is enough to take in here for one session and enough for me to write about that is so tragic.. However, do not think that it is all tragedy here..This house is full of laughter and happiness and hope for the future of Cambodia..But there is a mountain left to climb. Step by step. A testament to the pure goodness that can emerge from such evil.
When the soldiers came and emptied Siem Reap they were marched for ten days zig -zagging across the country to disorientate them. They were together for a short time and then their father was taken away to be executed. Being a teacher or a doctor, even wearing glasses marked you out as being educated and so you were killed. They found out afterwards that he was tortured for three days and ended up confessing to being a CIA agent which shows how desperate he became.
Ma was taken to another camp and made to work, as were the children but in a different camp. The KR knew that it was easier to 're-educate' children, especially if they were apart from their parents. There were 6 girls and 1 boy in the Ly family. Ponheary was the eldest at 13 and there was a baby of only a few months old. The children had to dig ditches. The baby had to be kept quiet as any troublesome children were always killed. Fortunately, the headman of the village the kids were taken to owed a debt to Mr Ly. He had taken penicillin to the village during an outbreak of something that was making people blind. This man kept a quiet watch on the children and gave them extra small things to eat. Ponheary talks about the day she killed her baby sister. They had managed to get a tiny amount of flat rice. This is rice that is pounded until the moisture is taken out of so that it keeps longer. It is often used while travelling. It is then boiled and reconstituted. Ponheary fed some to the baby who was starving, as they all were. It swelled in her stomach and as she had not eaten for so long and she died. Imagine carrying that guilt with you. Ponheary was 13, she did what she thought was best, noone could ever blame her. And yet she talks about the day she killed her baby sister.
Towards the end of the KR regime their mother was beaten up because the soldiers knew that someone was protecting her children because they all remained too healthy but she refused to name him and showed ignorance and so the mans life was saved and there was another debt. When the Vietnamese came to overthrow the KR, Siem Reap became safer when in the countryside there was even more killing. The headman hid the children in rice sacks (they are all tiny!) and, travelling at night only brought theem back to Siem Reap and left them here, on the site of their former home. They did not se him again until last year when he just showed up at the house.
During the genocide some things happened to the children that are so bad that I cannot write about them here. What I can say is that it is an absolute miracle that any of them are here today. Ponheary , at one time had to dig a grave and had her head bashed by a shovel. Unbelievably, she came to three days later n a killing field. Imagine being tied to a tree and having millions of ants set upon you because you have been found to have a tiny bit of root to chew on in the band of your skirt. Those are the things that I can tell you.
Lori tells me that she once witnessed an argument between Ponheary and the youngest sister Marina, it escalated out of all proportion and Lori was at a loss.. She asked Ponheary what it was really about. She said that during the genocide,when they were starving and whenever they had any free time they used to play a game about food. They would pretend that they were sitting at a table and it was covered in wonderful foods of every description. They would go into great detail about how everything looked and tasted and one day Marina had a whole chicken and she wouldn't give any to Ponheary. To this day it causes a problem Two starving children fantasising about a pretend chicken. It is heartbreaking.
Marina told me that when they came back their house, on this plot, was very old. A typical Cambodian house made of wood on stilts but, because of it's age, it was twisted sideways. The KR emptied Siem Reap, blew up the banks, schools and hospitals and changed the temples into re-education centres but largely left the houses untouched. THey had a vegetable garden and sold produce in the road. The occupation years were brutal but there was not the mass killing that the KR had instigated. There was terrible fighting every night and they dug a shelter in the ground to hide from it. Ma was especially fearful for Dara, the only boy, because the Vietnamese would round up all the men and send them off to cut wood at the border with Vietnam. This area was heavily mined and Marina said that if you saw your name on the list of people to go you knew you would never come back. Dara spent most of his time hiding in the lavatory.
Thus, the family managed to survive but the living was horribly tough and very dangerous until the Vietnamese pulled out after their funding from Russia ended and the UN arrived. Because of their secretly learned language skills the family were able to help the UN officials and start to earn some real money. i.e. dollars. Gradually, brick by brick they started to build a proper house. Marina said that her Mother was so attached to the wooden house they had it moved to the back of the plot and slowly, slowly were able to build a new house. It took years just for one floor to be built. Her mother could not accept that her husband was dead and went to astrologers to try to find out where he was.
And so life became safe about ten years ago but still very hard. Marina told me that they spent nothing ofor anything extra in their lives just the basics of rice and maybe a little fish just so everything could go to making them a decent house.
Step by step is a phrase hat Ponheary uses all the time when she talks about how she is trying to ensure that the poorest children have access to education, clean water and basic healthcare. Step by step is how the Ly family rebuilt their lives and step by step is how we are helping the disenfranchised children of Cambodia to see that there is another way.
I have many things to tell you. About te schools I have been to, about my school and classes, about the orphanage that is a place of such joyfulness. .Many other things. But, there is enough to take in here for one session and enough for me to write about that is so tragic.. However, do not think that it is all tragedy here..This house is full of laughter and happiness and hope for the future of Cambodia..But there is a mountain left to climb. Step by step. A testament to the pure goodness that can emerge from such evil.
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