Rebuilding

If I was born a few years earlier in Phnom Penh, Cambodia instead of Texas, USA, my life may have gone something like this…

When I was born, fire would come down from the sky onto surrounding villages from American secret forces trying to attack the Viet Cong who had moved into Cambodia. Maybe my family survived. A few years later the Khmer Rouge would begin to control Cambodia, declaring it “Year 0.” We would be forced out of our home into work camps in the country side as the Khmer Rouge instituted a Marxist agrarian nation. So would all of our neighbors as Phnom Penh was reduced from 1 million to 60,000 citizens in a few months. In a little bit of time, I would be separated from my family, my parents would not survive; as a lawyer and a teacher, they, along with the doctors, would be the first to be executed. I would be brainwashed into fighting for the Khmer Rouge as children were the “start of the nation” and properly equipped with military training.

Maybe I would make it, only to possibly starve to death. In 1978 the Vietnamese invasion fortunately ended the Khmer Rouge genocide of its own people, but unfortunately caused a massive famine for a few years.

And the next twenty or so years would be questionable. I missed all of my education as there was not schooling at that time, so I would probably end up as a farmer’s wife with some children who hopefully survived the dismal birth rate…I wouldn’t know if the civil war ever really ended as there has been political unrest up until the end of the century...

In some ways, Pol Pot did get his wish. Cambodia is starting over, not at “Year 0,” but at year 20 or 1997. They missed the Asian economic boom of the 80’s and 90’s that accelerated their neighbors standard of living. An entire generation is missing, the Khmer Rouge murdered about 2 million Khmers – approximately 20% of the population. And those who did live had no education, and their children had an inept education as the Khmer Rouge killed all of the teachers and destroyed the curriculum.

In my training class of 15 teachers almost everyone is under 30 with a few over 50 and just one teacher who is 40.

“I feel very, very luck. I do not die from Pol Pot. I do not die from no food. All of my friends, no families, no food and no school. But me, I have school before. Now I have good job teaching mathematics and computers and wife and children. We have hope. Khmer very strong people.”