Very interesting day today... We organised a bus and guide for our visits to S-21 and the killing fields. The cost for 7 of us $10 each for the guide and the bus.. Entrance to S-21 $2 (although it says $3) and the same for the Killing fields (but more on that later)..
We knew it would be an emotionally intense day, but I don't think we were entirely prepared for just how heavy the day was going to be.. Alighting from the bus outside S-21 we were surrounded by people without limbs, all arms outstretched wanting money.. We were quickly ushered into the compound, and the tour guide quickly dispatched us through the former school... I should mention that it has been sanitised but there are still remnants of blood splatter on the ceilings and walls. This after 30years.. The group photo above are some of the "child soldiers" and the other photo of an old man and child are some of the many victims.. The clothing removed from the prisioners before being executed. The leaders of the Khymer Rouge, the shackles worn and the cells in other buildings... Barbed wire was put onto the exterior of the buildings to prevent people from comitting suicide. It was more preferable for them to suffer slow and agonising deaths... The gentleman in the white shirt was our guide and he is standing in the cell block that housed political prisioners. Putting into words the things that were done to their people, seems to reduce their historical reality to a side-show and they deserve more respect than that. There is so much more that was seen, but as we moved through each building, and as we heard so much more of their bloody history, it seemed progressively wrong to take photos as if this was a Kodak moment... It was and is not... (sorry if this seems preachy and for others within our group I know they do not feel the same way but this is not their blog, nor is this their experience) Only one photo was taking of the killing fields and that is the monument above (White stupor).. We couldn't do anymore... Our visit to S-21 ended with Dudu and I sitting under some trees weeping.
On the way to the fields our guide shared his personal history with us... As a 9 year old boy he and his younger sister (7) were moved to a childrens camp. They were sent to work in the rice fields.. They were fed porridge which was rice thinned so much that it was soup like. There was a small amount of chicken in it occassionally and each person had one bowl.. The guards however were fed extremely well and their leftovers were fed to the dogs. These children worked hard for long hours with two bowls of porridge a day. Once at lunchtime and again at about 7 in the evening. He would hunt whatever he could find to supplement his rice porridge, spiders, frogs, gecko's essentially anything but it had to be well hidden or he would be "re-educated".. He said many people would do it, and if caught many were not seen of again.. He had seen mothers eating their children who had died in order to survive, it was just the way it was....
Occassionally his sister (who was in the same camp, but in the "girls" area) would see him lining up for his meal, and come over to ask him for some extra as she was so hungry, and when he could he would pass her some of what he had managed to find in the rice fields. He told us how one night, he had to lie to her as she was crying because she had fallen with her bowl of porridge and it had spilled on the ground... He went back to the cook and asked for some more for her, and two spoons of food were given, but no more... He told his sister that she would see their mother the next day as she couldn't stop crying... I should say that when they lived in Phenom Penh their family was wealthy... The next morning, he looked for his sister, and she never came out of the room... Guards were sent in to get her up, but she never came out.. They told him that she had gone to sleep forever... she was 7 he was 9 and to this day has nightmares about it... He is wracked with guilt over not providing her with more of the things he found and ate that enabled him to survive... So again, sitting on the bus just weeping..
At the killing fields the tour takes you towards the Stupor that contains the skulls of some of the victims they have found, but they are still finding more.. as each wet season comes and goes, more bodies, graves and remnants of the horrors of their war are uncovered.. We wandered along the path where he was showing us the tree where they would hang large speakers and play music loud. This was to drown out the sounds and moans of the dying, because as the war progressed, new victims were being made to walk to the fields... and they didn't want them to try to escape their fate which they would do if they knew the real reason of their trek.. He showed us the palm fronds used to kill some of the people, he explained that sometimes for fun they would make the prisoners kill each other till the last one was standing, and then he or she would be killed.. The bark of the trees where the babies were killed, would be damaged and they would grow back in rings.. Walking through the fields, you could see the clothing of bodies strewn that was surfacing through the earth, there were pockets of teeth and occassional skulls beginning to poke through... All we could think about was "we are walking on the bodies of your ancestors" and had to leave.. This was not true of all our group members... But this is why you will not see any photos of the fields... The caretakers told us of witnessing ghostly activity at night, as buddists believe that to go to heaven, the relatives of the dead must burn the bodies and the monks conduct ceremonies to help the spirits go to heaven... Their ashes are washed with coconut juice a combination of hinduism and buddhism belief system and is reminscent of the ceremony conducted in the Kungkea river in India.
Waiting for the rest of the tour group under the canopy of a large tree, and reflecting on everything that we had seen and been told today, the one saving grace was hearing the high-pitched laughter of children playing in the school nearby, as Dudu and I sat under the tree weeping.
This is not something that can readily be described, it must be experienced.. It must be felt, and it must be remembered.. Dudu and I were talking about how overwhelming it has been, but I fear that as time and distance pass, that the "fullness" of today will erode... We hope not..
Whilst this may seem depressing, and it has been, as our tour guide said, Cambodians are happy, because we have no more tears left... That's ok though, I know that there have been at least 2 Kiwis who still have some to share....
Tutu and Dudu xoxoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment