So far I've succeeded in keeping this blog fairly light and fluffy, yet with the excitement of being back at LRDE and SFODA with our lessons, we hadn't yet really been exposed to the darker underbelly of the city.
Last night we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Foreign Correspondence Club (FCC), the expat safe haven made famous in the Oscar-winning movie The Killing Fields. It is the place where journalists watched the victorious Khmer Rouge roll down the beautiful Sisowath Boulevard before evacuating the inhabitants of the city and effectively turning Phnom Penh into a ghost town overnight, and then going on to murder most if its residents.
Pol Pot, probably one of the worst despots in modern history, had a vision to return his country to year zero, and reduced the population to slaves working in flooded rice paddies in order to repay the Chinese for weapons for his notorious army. If you were educated, spoke a second language or even owned a pair of spectacles, you would be forced to dig your own grave and get bludgeoned. Dead or alive, the next set of prisoners, often family members, would be forced to bury you.
We can't quite wrap our heads around the horrific cruelty that the people of Cambodia suffered, possibly because we associate those sort of atrocities with the Middle Ages. But it really isn't. The placid people of Cambodia were being dragged out of their homes, tortured and systematically murdered while I was meeting up with my mates at Saddles and moving on to Ta' Saveria and Gianpula to dance the night away.
Over here, behind the smiles, the suffering still resonates, and Sothy, one of the pillars of the SFODA orphanage, is herself a victim of the Khmer Rouge. She was the youngest of six siblings all of whom were murdered by the Pol Pot regime. Her parents barely survived but were too old, too weak and too traumatized to bring up a young child and consequently sent to an orphanage. Sothy's story is one of tens of thousands.
Walking down the main boulevard last night really knocked the stuffing out of the evening because, among the massage parlours promising full body treatments, seedy bars with painted ladies, and pirate DVD stalls, beggars pleaded for hand-outs. Children as young as three or four - who, back in our world would have long been asleep with a warm night light and a Disney-themed mobile - scuttled amongst fat tourists hoping to sell some homemade trinkets.
What really got to us, however, was the sight of a very young mother, her toddler and her tiny new-born asleep on the filthy pavement. A few metres further away we spotted a young boy of about seven, alone, asleep on a shop doorstep. What must his days be like? And who is there to protect him? Would anyone even notice if he were abducted for a kidney?
How did the world get to be this way?
I apologise for painting such a dismal picture of this stunningly beautiful country with equally beautiful people. But poverty is a reality here and I would be doing readers and the people we are working with a disservice if I didn't give an honest account of our experiences here.
It is fitting that as I write this, we learn from the news that two top Khmer Rouge leaders have been found guilty of crimes against humanity during those terrible years. They will be jailed for life after being convicted by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal at the end of a three-year trial. It may be little consolation to the Cambodian people, but it is a small step towards justice.
Alan Montanaro