His story

After nearly a year in Cambodia and after reading numerous books and visiting Toul Sleng Prison and the Killing Fields at Choueng Ek, I am still struggling to understand what the people of this country have had to endure in their recent history.

In a bid to try and understand the psyche of the people here a little better, or just plain morbid curiosity, whenever I get an appropriate opportunity I ask the people I meet about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime. It often happens to be school directors who show me the bullet holes in their school buildings or tell me of how the school grounds were once a battle field or hospital or a prison or how landmines once littered the playground. I have also been told the stories from a teacher who remembers being 10 years old and helping to dig the earth from what has now become the beautiful Tropieng Tmar reservoir. He remembers seeing people killed on the very spot we stood at the time. He said that many people became ill from working such long hours under the sun and not having enough to eat or drink but the Khmer Rouge refused to believe they were unwell. Another director told me how he watched the Khmer Rouge cut the liver from someone’s back while they were still alive, to cook and eat. The tales are all told as if they happened yesterday with smiling faces this nation is famous for.

I have been aware that Mr Sophan has a story to tell and although always promising to tell it he has not until now. One quiet afternoon in the office this week I reminded him of his promise and got the short version of his story at last. He has promised more and admitted to filling 4 books with writing about is life at that time.

Mr Sophan grew up in Phnom Srok district and went to High School in Sisaphon as no high schools existed in Phnom Srok back then. He didn’t complete his Grade 9 exams as he signed up, at 16 years old, to Lon Nol’s government army. He went to fight in Preah Veng province, fighting in many battles and killing many men. However, the Khmer Rouge army was strong at that time and he was captured and imprisoned in the countryside. He was one of 800 in the prison and one of only 60 to survive it. He worked hard, did what he was told and kept quiet and was only close to being killed when he started teaching the alphabet in the prison and the Khmer Rouge accused him of being well educated. After negotiating with the cook for some food, he escaped the prison.

He lived in the forest in a resistance force with about 30 others for a while, fighting against the Khmer Rouge. After the liberation of the country he headed back to Phnom Srok. His father was dead. The Vietnamese ‘liberators’ helped set up commune and village leaders which Mr Sophan put himself forward for but was turned down due to his strong involvement with the army.

It is only a small sliver of his story and I’m itching to know more, my head buzzing with questions to fill the gaps, find out what he witnessed, what he did, how he felt at the time. After telling me this, through a translator, he asked me what I thought of him; his character and attitude. I was almost speechless and told him that I had never met a man like him before.

Quack

Being squashed into the back or front of a taxi has become quite common place now. I used to buy ‘two’ seats (which equals ‘one seat’ where I come from!) but since fares have increased (fuel prices have increased by about a third since I’ve been here) I’ve become decidedly less fussy about who I share my personal space with when travelling long distances. 8 is the number of adults I have shared a taxi with on my last few trips out of town. On route to Battambang Pam, Suzy, Corine and I bundled into the backseat, taking it in turns to sit forward and back to compensate for our Western-sized hips! At the beginning of the journey it was not too bad. We all felt quite comfy, snug even. However, after the first half hour I realised I couldn’t feel my left leg from the knee down and had no way of changing the fact.

Travelling back to Sisaphon a few days later I shared the front passenger seat of the taxi with Corine while the driver shared his seat and the gear stick with his wife! The Wife was thrilled most of the journey to be sharing such close proximity with a ‘barang’ and proceeded to stroke my arm, pull my arm hairs and stare at my nose a little too intently and a little too closely for my liking as well! I was helpless! Trapped! Caught between an overconfident Khmer lady and a petite (thankfully!) Corine and trying very hard not to squish the latter into the side of the door or stick my elbow into the former. If we had’ve had an accident, I think we would’ve been too wedged in to do ourselves much damage. We’re in Cambodia, who needs an airbag, or a seatbelt for that matter!? We engaged in some conversation with our fellow passengers and without realising how, the conversation soon turned to a fun game of ‘Guess the Animal’ whereby Corine and I made very realistic animal noise impressions for our new Khmer friends to identify (in Khmer of course!). Perhaps because we felt like animals packed in on their last trip to the market, I honestly can’t remember how it came up. It was a really funny game until we noticed that frogs in the Western world make a completely different noise to frogs in Cambodia. Everyone in the car was completely flummoxed by our frog impressions, which wasn’t helped by the fact that we couldn’t remember what the Khmer word for ‘frog’ was! This problem caused much merriment to Corine and I but caused the Khmer passengers to completely lose interest in us. They became completely engaged in a conversation and despite my very loud duck noises we spent the rest of the journey being completely ignored. It must’ve been quite some conversation to outdo my ‘quack’ and the occasional dig in the ribs from my wandering elbow!