Today we went to the genocide museum and the "Killing Fields."  The  museum was good: The atrocities of history, preserved in concrete.  Our guide Sam was phenomenal: The atrocities of life, preserved in his body and soul.

On the tuk tuk ride, he was openly angry at the Cambodian Government as well as Vietnam.  He spoke poignantly and pointedly about corruption. He shared parts of his story and he relayed an absence of hope.  He was 15 when the Khmer Rouge evacuated the city.

At the museum, we went through the cells and the hallways of S-21.  Saw the beds and the restraining devices.  Single pictures and a single bed in every room - representing the many.  The museum moved into a sea of faces - nameless souls whose spirits linger on the hearts and minds who dare to look and see.  Human Beings.  Lives, stories, histories, families, sorrows, and joys extinguished through brutal exsistence, torchure, and death - hundreds of faces, each with a pair of eyes - look through me and whisper

I am

Remember

Tell the story

Make peace

The museum continues through small brick confinements - cells. A chain in the ground to hold prisoners in, they lay starving, brutalized, helpless.  A man's name is scratched into one stall - cell # 22. That man is alive today.  One of the seven that survived back then. A man walks around the courtyard, every day. Every day the same visit to S-12 to talk to people.  This man also survived. One of seven.

The gallery of art and artifacts give names and stories, before and after photos - a lifetime reduced to a brief paragraph

focused on fear

the inability to run his or her own life

the inhumane experience

A man's artwork is displayed, bold strokes of truth.  He is also one of the seven.  Artwork and artifacts.  The unimaginable and the concrete. Side by side. Instruments of torture and depictions of brutal truths.  The skulls bear witness.

From there we travel 16 km into the country.  Today by tuk tuk, then, Cambodians would have been crammed onto Chinese trucks or walked each step bringing thoughts of coming torture, lost loved ones, agonizing starvation, a battered body, a possible death.  Which would have been worse at this moment in time, life or death?

We arrived at the killing feilds, walk past the man with one eye and one leg begging at the gate and are fronted by a towering, ornate, pristine Buddhist style monument.

Pictures are taken.

The windows run the height of the building, the colors contrast the sky.

Pictures are snapped.

A closer look at the windows and skulls appear.  Skulls: the cranial protection of all human beings.  One species. Curved bone across the top, eye sockets that fall into deep resesses, jaws with teeth entact.

Human skulls

9,000 of them enclosed behind glass in a monument that reaches to the sky.

Pictures are snapped. a door is entered.  Colorful origami is strung by the door, blessings and prayers offered.  Pictures of Buddha against the glass and a hand made sign that reads of hope.

I am standing eye to eye with 9,000 lost souls of S-21, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the human race, the world.

Seventeen levels of skulls and bones reaching to the sky.  My reflection stares back at me over the glass, voices are hushed, people's silhouettes are seen over the skulls and through the glass. 

Life and death

And are we all not capable of good and evil?

and who am I to have been born in America in 1967 instead of Phnom Penh in 1775?  It could be anyone, it could have been anywhere.

Good or evil

alive or dead

But today it is me confronted with the skulls of 9,000 spirits, 9,000 souls, 9,000 memories I have just met.

The eye sockets reveal every face that I saw in the museum.  Their stories and voices, their laughter and love, swirl around this place and draw me in.  I am drawn by the souls in each eye socket but am still connected to the world.  The last picture is taken.

I continue through the memorial.  A corner must be turned around the square base.  Gray cement seperates me from the skulls behind the glass. For an eternity of a moment, I must squeeze my body into this tight space.  I cannot see where I am going, I cannot see where I have been, but I can feel this space's tightness, its power, its metaphor. I maneuver to the other side and find myself in a corner.

I stand alone with 9,000 skulls.

I stand and look and see and feel untill I cannot look at see.  The tears come slowly, the empty eye sockets, soul deep, stare down and up and over.  Cracks tightly meander across the tops of skulls.  Jaws are open and shut and broken.

Silent witnesses to genocide.

The tears come harder and I no longer see or look, but can only feel.  The physical reaction is out of my control.  My body trembles, my eyes weep, my breath convulses, I cannot move although life moves around me.  My mind prays but the prayers are not spoken - directly connected through this experience, something moves through me.

Humanity at its best, taken by humanity at its worst.

And who am I?

But honored to bear witness

to be in this space

having souls and spirits wash through me

and who am I?

but capable of all things

within all the reaches of humanity

capable of choice

I will bear witness

and I will choose to bring peace.

I set out to run some errands today in Battambang with a very exact agenda in mind. I needed fabric and paint for my ISP, lunch, and yakyak/course evaluation time. I decided to try and find some fabric first at this really faraway place called Rachana Handicrafts, off recommendation from both my lonely planet and a new artist friend. I found a tuk tuk to take me there and after about 15 minutes of driving (and we were still not there!) this place was really out of the way. 5 minutes later my tuk tuk driver stopped and motioned for me to exit the vehicle.

Assuming we were there I looked around curiously, seeing only stalls selling fruit and gasoline around me. When I turned to my left I saw a muddy road that seemed to never end. I could hear children further down the path laughing and singing, and as I later saw, they were having a mud fight as well. My tuk tuk driver smiled at my apprehensive face and motioned me to begin down the road. My feat were glued to the ground. Not emotionally glued, but physically. It was so muddy that after standing there for just moments I had created an ankle-deep hole beneath me.

My driver (his name is Phoeuy Pheng) helped me get free and then started walking in front of me down the path, leading me towards this mysterious crafts store. After about 10 minutes of muddy walking, we were there. I was covered in mud up to my calfs. It must have looked from far away as if I was just wearing really really thick brown boots. Upon entering the Rachana compound, a woman ran towards me from the store front shouting "oh no! oh no, oh no, oh no!" At first I thought she wanted this muddy monster that I had become out of her place of work, but I soon realized she felt apologetic (because it was of course HER fault that I was covered in mud?? she was so nice!) as soon as she started repeating the word "sorry" over and over while spraying me with a full powered water hose.

The other women from the shop ushered me into their store, sat me down in a chair, and fetching me water and Cambodian treats. That kind of hospitality...man, you really can't find it anywhere else. After a few moments the first woman came back and I started asking her questions about Rachana. Her name was Yi Syvanna and she was actually the founder and director of the place. It was an organization started to help empower Cambodian woman through the art of sewing, weaving, and handicraft making. She taught disadvantaged woman the trade and then set them off to start their own stores to support themselves.

Mrs. Syvanna has helped save over 250 women and their families. She started the organization after the Cambodian genocide because she knew that many many women out there had no formal education, family, or means to support themselves.

Rachana became a community, a place to practice engligh, a place to hone a profitable trade, and a place to live. Best of all, it was started BY a Cambodian woman because she saw a problem in her community and took it upon herself to fix it. No foreign aid was required, just sheer determination, skill, and compassion.

I spent over 2 hours at Rachana hearing stories, buying beautiful products, and getting inspired by some of the most incredible women I have ever met in my life. Mrs. Syvanna told me a little before I left that Pol Pot had stopped her from having a proper education, so she set out to make sure that all her children would have educations. She saved and scrimped, and now her two eldest daughters are both university educated. One is studying in Phnom Penh to be an english teacher, and the other is studying medicine. She asked if I had plans to go to university and I said yes. She asked if I was going to be paying for it and I shook my head no and said that my parents would be. She got this big smile on her face and said "just like my children. Both my children and you are very lucky."

I can't even express how touched I felt (shoutout to my parents: MOM AND DAD! YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!!!!!!!! love you both so much). Her values are just so beautiful, her thoughts so kind, and her wisdom plentiful. I left Rachana feeling the happiest I had felt in a very long time.

This posting is a compilation of student poems.  For individual student poems, please refer to the Yak entitled "Update from the whole group... and poetry" on the Senegal Yak board.  Thank you -Boulder Admin

“I am Senegal”

I am Senegal
I am the cooking of the rice and the exhaust of the trucks
I am the heat.
The sweat.
The fresh flowers and grass
I am the rhythm in the streets and the whisper in the trees
I am the people. The loneliness. The generosity
I am Senegal
I am the delicious cafÈ Touba infused with clove and spices
I am the distinctive body odor of my hardworking counterparts
I am the lump in my throat that arises when it’s time to say goodbye to a new friendly family
I am the young talibe on the street who beg for some generosity
I am Senegal
I am the woman pounding hard work into her millet by dusk.
I am the mysterious scent of yassa poulet that has invaded all crevices of my life here.
No one needs to speak. Our faces say it all
I am late night music and early morning prayer
I am the constant hum of crickets
The waking call of a forgetful rooster
I am the bitter tea filled with sugar
A sweet mango, yellow as the sun
I am the dusty smell of sugar
That always lingers in the warm air
I am hardship.
The need for clean water
The quest for a good education
The desire for a life of more safety
I am a woman bent from age
Above my head are clouds as big as Mbouille’s heart.
I am the popping of glass Cokes and Fantas.
I am Senegal.
I am the pounding rhythm of life and the excited pulse that guides the days
I am the sweet, savory, syrup of a mango, oozing through your fingertips
I am the joy, simplicity, and hope carried through the pure spirit of the village
I am the stories woven into the creases of the elders’ faces
I am the lustful aroma of budding life that cradles your nose
I am the sun’s extending fingertips, dancing over the muddy bubbles of the dirt-washed streets
I am Senegal.

We walk in silence up the ever increasing slope. One behind the other the pace of our breath begins to pick up and our bodies finally begin heating up in the cool mountain air. The corn fields on either side of us stretch far above our heads and deposit us directly into the thick mist hanging off the limbs of trees. We sit in the damp field of grass creating a large circle and fall in tune with the beats of the drum and wail of the trumpet. The man performing the ceremony kneels forward in his worn leather jacket and wraps a yellow scarf around his forehead. With my palms pressed flat on the wet earth and silent lightning all around, the music begins to pick up, salt is spread in a small circle in front of the man and large handfuls of candles are placed all around the outside pointing in.

The many different colors of the candles represent all that is part of life and nature. He offers much to the supreme being through chanting and praying in his native tongue. Luispe whispers quietly the translation and i am reminded once again why i came here, to learn to laugh, to live, to love what i have, who we all are and all that is around me. To accept the way people are and their choices in life. To see selflessness as a way of living and find appreciation for peoples´modes of being. The ceremony is presented with us in mind, as the focus, who we are in their community and what we will choose to take back to our lives.

The man asks to forgive us for the effect we have on the world and people. For waking up every morning and forgetting to appreciate our lives. To forgive that which we are unaware of, and to send us wisdom in all aspects of our life. I am a part of the communal being. My roots are all over this earth and I am growing to benefit others, to strengthen and produce the peace and good, happiness and love that is in each of us. I am here to see past the small things and find a way of understanding who people are.

I am in Guatemala, in the world, to gain the wisdom to be as strong as i can be, so that I, in being human can transfer positive energy, to give back to the earth and sustain poise in all i do. Allowing negativity to burn in the circle of fire, we invite sweetness into our lives and the life of the earth alike. I am one with the people on either side of me. I am one with this circle, the music and lightning. I am part of the offering and part of the taking.

I am nature. I am Earth. I am alive.