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June 06, 2007
Settling In
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve arrived in Cambodia. My time has flown here – on the one hand I feel like I touched down in Phnom Penh yesterday, but on the other hand I feel like I’ve made Cambodia my own in the short time I’ve been here.
Phnom Penh is like many cities: packed; buzzing with motorbikes; and hugging a river. But unlike many cities, it has had to rebuild itself in the last three decades. The Khmer Rouge basically ruined Phnom Penh in the 1970’s – buildings were destroyed, and combined with the economic impact of genocide, was forced to develop slowly. Today, things have changed. My office is being torn down in a year to be replaced with the largest building in Phnom Penh, and just down the road is “Lucky Burger” – Cambodia’s answer to McDonald’s. Cambodia is developing quickly, and a comparison between a map of Phnom Penh today and one of the early 80’s is enough to convince anyone that this city is on a single track to expansion.
My weekend was interesting. I visited the genocide museum with my friend Ghazaleh, and we were guided around the former school-turned-torture-venue by a guide who incorporated her own stories of the Khmer Rouge regime to the tour. The museum itself was pretty horrifying: pictures of the victims were lined up against the wall – some alive, some dead. One picture framed a wasted away corpse on a bed with chicken footmarks in the blood next to it - the chickens had eaten part of the corpse. The museum additionally had representations of torture instruments that were used to punish the prisoners – any school teacher, anyone who spoke English or anyone who wore glasses was arrested and sent there. After staying at the prison for anytime from one to six months, victims were sent to The Killing Fields to be executed. Ghanzaleh and I went straight to the Killing Fields after the genocide museum. We were both initially shocked at how serene the area is - the only sounds you hear are those of children playing and birds singing. However, as we walked around we soon realized the horror of what had happened here. We were walking on graves. Over 8000 people were bludgeoned to death (bullets were too valuable) and left to die in pits. Their clothes were sticking out of the soil, as were bones and even the occasional tooth. And it’s everywhere. You look around you, and all you see is small bits of fabric pushing its way up to the atmosphere – it almost seems like they’re gasping for air. While the experience was incredibly moving for me, I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who actually lived through the genocide itself. And there are many of them: anyone over the age of 35 has some recollection of the Khmer Rouge period. The only firsthand stories of war and/or genocide I had ever heard had come from WWII survivors, men and women two generations above me. Having such young people experience the atrocities made them even more real.
After a day like that, Ghazaleh and I needed some cheering up, understandably. So what do you do after a day of walking through fields of genocide? You go listen to ‘Asia’s “Tom Jones”’ of course! That’s right, a Malaysian Tom Jones impersonator performs in one of Phnom Penh’s fanciest hotels, and the most bizarre thing is: he’s pretty good. In addition to wooing us with classics like “It’s not unusual”, he also charmed us with his Welsh/Malaysia accent. Where there’s a demand, there’s a supply: you see, westerners touched down in Cambodia 15 years ago; and in that time countless hotels, restaurants, bars and apartment buildings have sprung up for our convenience and pleasure. It’s very easy living like a king here, but at the fraction of the cost. Dinner at a beautiful riverfront air-conditioned restaurant, martinis to follow (tamarind martini? Bring it on) and drinks at a bar will put you back less than 20 dollars. The ex-pat scene is vibrant and varied: anything goes. Want to go out every night? OK. Decide to stay in and watch movies? That’s fine too. Working from 8 – 6 every day means that I don’t always have the energy for a night out, but once Friday night rolls around it seems that everyone is up for a night out. It’s not the first time I’ve been in an environment where ex-pats are paying 3 dollars for drinks while countless people are starving, and there are ethical dilemmas going out with hordes of white people. But I did find it interesting that so many restaurants here work as NGOs themselves - to cater to westerners who work at other NGOs. The restaurants train children off the street to be waiters, cooks and hostesses and are then sent to work at some of the top restaurants in the country. It’s a system that benefits Cambodians, and the feeling of guilt that exists when westerners pay 10 dollars for dinner.
Work starts at 8, which is a bit of a shock to the system that ran at Brown time (no classes before 11, thank you very much). But the two hour lunch break makes up for it: offering time for errands, a nice long lunch or even a short nap. I’m working for The Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI). CHAI in Cambodia is primarily involved with procurement of pediatric ARVs (AIDS drugs). My role in all of this is varied: in my time here I’ve edited documents; made flow charts of children should be diagnosed; visited hospitals in the countryside; checked floorplans for a clinic and done a lot of reading about HIV/AIDS in Cambodia. Work is good – I’m kept busy, so the days fly by pretty quickly. However, by the time 6 pm rolls around I’m pretty knocked out, and I usually come back home to my apartment, throw down my bag, switch on the fan and flop onto the bed. “Another day in Cambodia” I tell myself; before I slowly get up, change out of my work clothes, and go get dinner started.
Posted by Guy Bloembergen at 04:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
