Day two in Cambodia: "I hope you are happy in my country"

On full stomachs and greased from head to toe with sunblock and bug spray, we stepped in our tour bus headed for Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.



From up above and at a distance with beautiful weather, it doesn't even look like a place of torture
 

The museum is the actual place where prisoners were tortured and executed. The "special" prisoners were kept in the first building in single cells that were bigger than an average sized room.  Many were interrogated and accused of trying to counter the Khmer Rouge. They were beaten and bludgeoned, and their blood stains still remained on the vomit-yellow and off-white tile floors. The metal beds with a weave-like pattern in the middle that the prisoners were chained to still remained in the room, as well as the metal boxes the prisoners used for their bodily excretions.

Prisoner bed, with excretion box

Blood-stained tiles

One of the photographs a journalist took of one of the last 14 prisoners to be executed at S21

Even though it has been almost 30 years since these heinous crimes happened, the place still reeked of death. And once we were set free by our tour guide to meander for an hour as we pleased, I found myself in the second building on the top floor, which contained prisoner cells, with wooden doors and tiny yellow windows.

The hallway of the prison cells

Entrance to the hall

 

Walking through the cells and the hall gave me the chills, despite it being almost 90 degrees and humid outside. The pain and suffering these people endured lingered in the air--I could feel it and smell it. I had the feeling you get when you think someone is behind you, following you, even though I knew no one else was on that floor with me. My primitive senses started to kick in, determining whether to fight or flight. I could only walk through one cell and down two halls before I headed for the stairs, begging for fresh air to fill my lungs.

I located my classmates--trying to force what I just felt and experienced to the back of my mind. I immediately spotted one of my classmates talking to a Buddhist monk, who I had seen entering the museum earlier.



 

I stood there watching their conversation, trying to eavesdrop. I didn't want to be rude, but my professor noticed me watching them, and he insisted I go join in on the conversation. So I did. And I'm glad my professor encouraged me. The monk spoke very good English and he seemed very interested in answering our questions. After five minutes of talking with him, we were told we had to prepare to leave.

As we walked toward the rest of the group waiting by the gates for the bus, the monk continued to talk to me about the museum, "This place is a good lesson for the whole world. Sometimes we are told we cannot do things. So we try out best to prove to others that we can. Leaders are those people who have been told they cannot do something. So they show they can. What they originally wanted was good but it change and turn out bad." He kept on repeating how the museum was a wonderful lesson for everyone and how important education is in preventing atrocities, such as what transpired at S-21, from happening again. And not just in Cambodia, but around the world. He noted how this isn't an isolated case, and people in different countries are suffering similar fates.

Before leaving, I told the Buddhist monk my name and asked him his (sadly, I'm better at remembering faces than names and I'm sure "Courtney" was just as foreign of a name to him as his was to me), I thanked him for talking to me and he responded with, "I hope you are happy in my country." We said final goodbyes and parted ways.

I sat on the bus, preparing myself for the Killing Fields, thinking about what I had just experienced at the museum. I thought about the photographs of the people who were executed and about the people who shared their accounts about being a part of the Khmer Rouge:



One of the accounts of being in the Khmer Rouge



Another account
 

These people succumbed to the Khmer Rouge  and killed and tortured their own people for fear their fates would be sealed the same way. Both of these accounts seem remorseful, and the second one is not afraid to tell what he did while working at S-21. However, not all of them were like this; some said they had no regrets because they did what they had to in order to survive.

I want to blame poverty and the lack of education for why this human tragedy happened. But that is an easy scapegoat because education can be used to distort the way we perceive the world and can be used to rationalize the unethical treatment of humanity as well. It's difficult to find a solidified answer to the "How could this happen?" and the "Why?" I don't think there is a solution, and I think that's the point. There is no sense of closure or any amount of justice that can change what happened. I think the important questions that we should be asking are: "How do we prevent genocide from happening?" and "What small role can we play in stopping and preventing it from reoccuring around the world?"

Despite the chaos, the living conditions, and the tragic history, I think there is an element of hidden beauty in Cambodia, surrounded by valuable lessons.

I hope you are happy in my country. Yes, I am. Very much so.