Undoubtedly, the first thought that crosses my mind is that this field visit was so well designed; in terms of balance and content. The other thought concomitant to that is the amount of labor and planning that must have gone into its execution which pretty much was flawless. The theme surrounding the 8 days visit to Phnom Penh, Battambang and Siem Reap was to observe state building after a country has been ravaged by genocide barely 3 decades ago as well as to see the different aspects of tourism as a peace building mechanism. After visiting the Choeng Ek Genocide Memorial and the killing field near Phnom Penh, the question arose whether it is appropriate to memorialize a genocide by display of skeleton un earthed from the site. To my mind, this is a question that could be answered by the people involved. Especially those whose family were subjected to the systematic slaughter by Pol Pot [Political Potential] regime – Khmer Rouge during the period 1975 – 1979. So cold blooded and systematic was the extent of the slaughter of the Khmer elite by the Rouge that the killing field we visited had a tree called the magic tree on which hung loud speakers playing sound which would drown out the screams of those being butchered. The place where chemical substances were stored was an eye opener to understand how the Khmer Rouge used DDT to eliminate the stench of decomposing bodies so that people working in near by fields would not be suspicious and DDT also used by executioners to kill off victims who were buried alive. The Tuol Sleng Prison also known as S-21 was another site visit which made me weep incessantly. To my mind the regime of Pol Pot and its officers could not possibly have been human. They would have to be a sub human form to perpetrate such horrors on other people of their own race and nationality. The only crime of the victims appeared to be that they were elite in their education. And since the Rouge regime wanted a homogenized society of only farmers, what was to be done with those professionals, those educated but to kill them all off.
So today that brings us to a Cambodia having scarcity in professionals; which is strange considering that this is a country suffering PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] but hardly any psychotherapists since, remember, they were all wiped out by the Pol Pot regime. How can any state building activity be initiated when international ngo’s are a dime a dozen pouring money to rehabilitate the nation? Of course their rationale would be that there is hardly any state building activity being initiated by the Hun Sen party now in power for the past 30 years and that would justify the international ngo presence in Cambodia. The mind mapping exercise we did on the last day before departing Cambodia was a great tool to learn and understand how to use in day to day life. Since I felt disconnected to the events of the past week, I undertook the mind mapping exercise to understand why this was a dilemma to me. The answers I came upon were that since I was pretty much in the dark as to the depth of the issues on going in Cambodia [having spent barely a week in that Nation], it would be too pre mature to even hazard any assessments of the situation. Secondly, the mind map indicated that I would need to be invited into an actual hands on work situation for me to even start getting connected to the country. The third reason for being disjointed with the events of the past week were probably because I had experienced them and moved on. Being grounded in the present actually prevents me from delving too much into the past unless I am required to do so because of the work that I might be engaged to be doing. The two things that I can take away from the Cambodian experience would have to be:
Something touching the Osmose guide told us - that he would like his son to be a bird watcher like him but more importantly that he would like his son to have dreams of his own; Tong Lee the 23 year old who has the ginormous burden of carrying forward the FEDA legacy almost single handedly, shared with me the weight of that burden and I felt very deeply for that boy not yet a man, who is giving his entire life so
that other children and society in Battambang would become economically empowered through local and youth initiative.
So today that brings us to a Cambodia having scarcity in professionals; which is strange considering that this is a country suffering PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] but hardly any psychotherapists since, remember, they were all wiped out by the Pol Pot regime. How can any state building activity be initiated when international ngo’s are a dime a dozen pouring money to rehabilitate the nation? Of course their rationale would be that there is hardly any state building activity being initiated by the Hun Sen party now in power for the past 30 years and that would justify the international ngo presence in Cambodia. The mind mapping exercise we did on the last day before departing Cambodia was a great tool to learn and understand how to use in day to day life. Since I felt disconnected to the events of the past week, I undertook the mind mapping exercise to understand why this was a dilemma to me. The answers I came upon were that since I was pretty much in the dark as to the depth of the issues on going in Cambodia [having spent barely a week in that Nation], it would be too pre mature to even hazard any assessments of the situation. Secondly, the mind map indicated that I would need to be invited into an actual hands on work situation for me to even start getting connected to the country. The third reason for being disjointed with the events of the past week were probably because I had experienced them and moved on. Being grounded in the present actually prevents me from delving too much into the past unless I am required to do so because of the work that I might be engaged to be doing. The two things that I can take away from the Cambodian experience would have to be:
Something touching the Osmose guide told us - that he would like his son to be a bird watcher like him but more importantly that he would like his son to have dreams of his own; Tong Lee the 23 year old who has the ginormous burden of carrying forward the FEDA legacy almost single handedly, shared with me the weight of that burden and I felt very deeply for that boy not yet a man, who is giving his entire life so
that other children and society in Battambang would become economically empowered through local and youth initiative.