cambodia
In Cambodia I walked on the bone fragments and teeth still coming up from the earth from the 20,000 people killed in one killing field during the Khmer Rouge genocide and saw the prison where they tortured people before taking them to the field. It’s a history lesson through immersive horror. And a lesson in what humans are capable of.
As an antidote, I experienced the opposite side of humanity when my bag was stolen while on the beach in Sihanoukville. There's a kind of peace that you have to come to when something that you really value is lost. I had just come to this peace when, 5 hours after it happened, two girls selling trinkets on the beach came rushing up to me and said they had found my camera. During those 5 hours, a network of no less than a dozen people were working on finding the boy who stole it, his family, and rounding everyone up, including me, for an intervention meeting at a local nonprofit organization.
I felt humbled and confused. I told the Directors that it was very difficult for me to sit there and expect that they return the money to me when they obviously need it more than I do. They explained to me that this has been a problem with the family in the past and that the parents send their kids to do whatever they can to get money to support their addictions to gambling and alcohol and by having this intervention maybe it will help them understand that not only the NGO but other community members will not support them if they steal. They then asked one of the women to hand me the $10 she had in her pocket from her share of the money. I took it graciously but my stomach hit the floor.
This was followed by seeing the ruins of Ankor Wat near Siem Reap; the majesty and magnetism of human innovation and transcendence. How all of these places and experiences can exist, juxtapose, and layer one another is half the wonder of traveling.
