Weekend 3: a long report

Friday at 5:30 p.m. a van carrying 11 interns, myself included, turned into Phnom Penh rush hour traffic (changed my mind—makes L.A.’s look tame) toward Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s 2nd largest city. Sihanoukville is about 3 and a half hours southwest of Phnom Penh, on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It was dark by the time we really left Phnom Penh’s outer limits, so the drive consisted mostly of endless games of categories and finite amounts of beer.

We stayed in a collection of bungalows on a hill overlooking one of Sihanoukville’s many beaches. It was lush and green, and the bungalows were beautiful, despite the fact that the AC in mine was broken and ants had invaded my bed—a problem remedied the next night by some Raid and sacrificed brain cells.

Caroline and Jessica on their deck overlooking Serendipity Beach.

Sihanoukville is an interesting place. When I imagined Cambodia’s 2nd largest city, I pictured something the size of Berkeley. But what I saw of Sihanoukville—the nicer, gentrified center—was more like a Seaside beach (reference for Oregonians only). I understand that the city sprawls outward, into slums and a thriving child sex industry. The juxtaposition of wealth and luxury and poverty and exploitation never ceases to take my breath away.

Seven of us spent most of Saturday at the beach, moving umbrellas up and down to ward off rain (oh, monsoon season). It was worth it. I’d been craving fresh air and open spaces more than I’d realized. So much so, in fact, that I broke into a barefoot run on the beach that did not end until a sharp pain gripped my foot and I limped back to our lounge chairs. Three days of swollen discoloration, and two nagging fears that I’d either sprained my foot or suffered a nasty insect bite later, I learned Tuesday that I most likely fractured a tiny bone on the top of my foot. Nothing too bad—I can walk fine—but no more barefoot running for me in the future.


The beach that prompted my injured foot

I sat in the front seat on the drive back on Sunday, meaning I was perfectly situated next to the most powerful speaker. This enable me to best appreciate the driver’s “English love songs” CD. After two times through the 17 tracks of Celine Dion, Usher, Enrique Iglesias, and some other super-talented singers I could not identify, I think my brain actually rewired. (Or maybe that was the after-effects of the Raid inhalation).

I was glad I got to see the countryside during the daylight that day, even if my perception was slightly altered by Enrique singing “I can be your hero, baby.” For a U.S. semi-city girl born and raised, these huge expanses of rural countryside without electricity or running water have not yet become expected. Shirtless children herd skinny cattle and water buffalo across the highway, men and women tend to flooded rice paddies barefoot, and the porches that look ready to collapse are filled with laughing, joyous families.
Indeed,

I am continually amazed by the love that shines from the faces of so many Cambodians, every day, regardless of social status or economic prosperity. They are such a gentle, considerate people, and the genocide that happened here is so fundamentally opposed to what I see and hear that I cannot begin to wrap my mind around it. Not only the question of how any human being could enact that much pain and death onto other human beings, but how he could do it to Cambodians in particular.

The more research I do about the post-genocide justice process, the more angry I become. I consider myself a generally fair, judicious person—I try to think through situations that involve other people thoroughly before I react. But I lack that control and that level-headedness completely in the case of the Khmer Rouge: a normal reaction to genocide, I know. The research I am doing, however, requires me to read through summaries and headlines of legal arguments that defend as well as prosecute the living perpetrators of the 1975-1979 mass torture and killing. My fists clench as I read Ieng Sary deny he knew what was going on. I am totally captivated by Nuon Chea’s claims of innocence. My heart speeds up as I read that Ieng Thirith’s defense sought to exclude records of the “confessions” from torture-prisons, which would prove the defendants’ compliance in the tactics used to obtain them, on the very grounds that they were torture tainted and thereby inadmissible. It’s like rubbing salt in the biggest, deepest wound we cannot imagine. It is insult to the gravest injury committed.

I have the deepest respect for the lawyers who are defending these men and woman, for “true” justice, whatever that is, will only occur if the trial is seen as legitimate. But the how’s and the why’s and the guttural feelings that their arguments incite are not easily processed.

World Cup Week

***NOTE: The reference to my beloved father in paragraph 2 was intended as a self-deprecating rhetorical move; that is, as a joke about how lame I am to be spending nights in an american-esque dive bar with american-esque people with terrible beer and (of late) disappointing games while in CAMBODIA. This behavior is wholly acceptable in the United States, especially if the dive bar and american-esque people are not contributing factors in the situation.****

Now that I’ve begun to adapt to Phnom Penh, every little event has become less novel and I feel that daily updates might be slightly forced in terms of content. I think this is evidenced by the fact that I am writing this over a week after “the next week” headline applied. So I will change to chunk entries.

The days of this week blurred together for one primary reason: the World Cup. That is, I worked during the day, went out to dinner, and then to a bar in the backpacker’s area to watch the games. On my third night at Hunter’s Bar—the place is like a Berkeley dive bar transported into the heart of Phnom Penh—I looked at my glass of beer, then at the large screen in front of me, and realized my life had come to resemble my father’s during March Madness or the NBA playoffs to a disturbing degree. Except that I’m not in a basement in Oregon, and the beer sucks. (Really, it does, and this from someone who doesn’t even know beer much. But it’s cheap.)

Then, on Wednesday, the amazing happened. The U.S. soccer team gave all the expats something to cheer. The final-minutes victory prompted a group of not-particularly-overly-patriotic Americans to begin chanting “U.S.A” at midnight in the capital of Cambodia.

Day 7 & 8 (Weekend 2)

Saturday I discovered why some call the rainy season here “monsoon season.” In a matter of twenty minutes, the sun disappeared behind unexpected clouds, said clouds grew darker, and sheets of rain so thick you couldn’t identify individual drops began to fall. The sound was one of the most singularly beautiful and peaceful I’ve heard. I took a still video which unfortunately does not transfer onto the camera’s memory card, but the audio could easily appear on a token “soothing nature sounds” CDs.

Sunday two other interns and I went to the Russian market. This market may be smaller than the Central Market in terms of total area, but it is exponentially denser. Knockoff brands, cheaply made clothing, and tacky souvenirs crowd in so closely that the hordes of shoppers are repeatedly reduced to single file lines as we weave our way through the consumer maze. My guidebook warns that the Russian Market, while a “must-see” for tourists, should be avoided on hot days because it becomes “a literal microwave” inside. Unfortunately, the months when hot days were distinguishable are long over, so into the microwave we went.

The focus of my fellow shoppers was a positive influence: even with all the crowds and chaos, I still managed to pick up some desperately needed clothing and trinkets. (Alright, I concede, the trinkets weren’t desperately needed). Afterwards we took a tuk tuk over to a really posh pool and lounged around for hours. It was an odd feeling: I’d spent all week sweating through blouses and khakis discussing issues of genocide and justice, as I will the rest of the summer, and now here I was in an expat’s heaven. Overpriced spa-type food was only a wave away, imported greenery surrounded me, and an 8 foot concrete wall was all that separated me from the reality of Cambodia’s overwhelming poverty and corruption. And yet I feel that in some way, moments like these will be essential to maintaining my sanity.

These girls asked me to take their pictures on my way back into Phnom Penh from a nearby village, a day before entry into swanky-pool-land.

Day 7 (Friday)

I felt a little feverish and tired last night and this morning, and spent a good chunk of this afternoon bawling to my parents on Skype about how I didn’t want to get sick and miss out on fun things, and have to go to a Cambodian hospital, and blah blah blah. Then I actually bought a thermometer and discovered I am running no discernibly high temperature and most likely am suffering only a cold.

Went to dinner with Caroline and a friend on the riverfront (read: expensive Western restaurants). We went to the “Cantina”—a highly questionable decision in Cambodia. I ordered a bean burrito and was greeted by a butter-fried “tortilla” filled with boiled black beans. Period. Mmm mmm unencumbered fatty fiber.

P.S. Sorry if this last one reads kind of like a twitter feed.

Day 6 (Thursday)

A taxing but very important day. The VT team accompanied the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, an NGO that provides psychological counseling to KR survivor-victims (among others), to The Killing Fields. The Killing Fields are now-lush green spaces that also were mass graves for up to 20,000 KR victims. The KR soldiers used horrifying tactics to save bullets when torturing and murdering “subversives.”



It was the first visit to the fields for many of the survivors, all of whom had lost an unfathomable number of loved ones during the KR. After an emotional walk-through of the fields, we all participated in a Buddhist ceremony seeking peace in some form. I know this only through feeling: the chants were, of course, all indecipherable in language to me.

Then the buses took us to a nearby pagoda, where survivors shared their stories in Khmer, translated quietly for the internationals in attendance. I cannot repeat here what I heard—it was too terrible, and too wrenchingly personal. Today I remembered why I came here. It is essential to document the terror of 1975-1979 and what has followed since in a way that is accessible to everyone, rather than just internet-savvy Westerners, lest history repeat itself. Time is rapidly diminishing before these memories are lost forever.

Day 5 (Wednesday)

Another amazing day with amazing people. Today I met Zelie Pollon, an independent journalist who has written for People magazine and Reuters. She was in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 creating a photojournalism collection about Iraqi reactions to the war. She’s will be working on a similar project in Cambodia, documenting the stories of genocide survivors.

In the evening I experienced Tiny Toones with Angel. Tiny Toones is an amazing non-profit that provides a unique education to kids who either wouldn’t have one (from slums) or who would be going to incredibly subpar public schools. (Californians, not to diminish our fiscal issues, but there’s some mind-blowing perspective here). They run 34 buses a day to bring students from the outskirts of the city into the center to learn English, Khmer, math, and most other standard classes.

After 5 p.m., the curriculum changes. Those who choose can participate in break-dancing sessions and lessons, providing a great alternative to hustling or gang activities. The program was started by a Cambodian refugee who was deported to Phnom Penh after pleading guilty to a felony in 2004, per a Bush administration law mandating deportation for any noncitizen who commits a felony. These dancers are AMAZING. They travel the world performing, including to the U.S., and troupes from around the world come to Phnom Penh to dance with them.

Angel break dances, so she fit right in with the circle. I, on the other hand, have been told I’m “the stiffest girl in the world” on the dance floor. However, I believe I still served a purpose: I think my pathetic dancing made the shy girls in the male-dominated space feel much better.

Day 4 (Tuesday)

Our whole team was finally complete today, so we had a long welcome dinner at an Indian restaurant near the backpacker hostel-area/less ritzy-but-still-expensive tourist section of Phnom Penh. I spend a good amount of time in this area—there are a huge number of expats and college/grad students living here now. I should have expected as much, since Phnom Penh is home to so many NGOs, dealing with a broad range of issues. And how do nonprofits run? Right, interns. There’s even a strip of streets known as NGOland.

Went to a housewarming party that evening with all law students, and determined my decision to join their ranks will be either the best or worst of my life. (OK, that may be a little dramatic).

Day 3 (Monday)

My first day at work didn’t start until the afternoon, an indication of the flexible schedule that will surely characterize my summer. My housemate Caroline took me to the Westernish mall after I complained about having packed too little. This means that I had not allotted for sweating pieces of clothing to an un-wearable state every single day. However, like the Central Market (which is outdoor) that we would tour later, the space was so jammed with clothes, accessories, and aggressive salespeople—and conspicuously bereft of dressing rooms—that I ended up too overwhelmed to buy anything except a pair of sunglasses for $3, which I later saw a street kid selling for $1. My bartering skills have improved, but not my ability to handle the immense crowding.

After the director updated me on the project in our VERY small office, we met with the filmmakers who will be creating interactive videos for site users. It’s the same company that produced Duch on Trial, which about one-fifth of the country watched—a huge percentage considering how many in rural provinces do not have televisions. Afterwards, we toured their studio, which right now has a set prepared on one floor for a soap opera they’re producing to increase cooperation and tolerance among Khmers and Cham Muslims. Get this—and this is the best part—it’s funded by the U.S. Department of State.

Later, wonderful dinner at an Indonesian restaurant, a brief exploration of some rather avante garde short films at a Cambodian film archive, and then another fitful night sleep.

Day 2 (Sunday)

The next morning’s sun rose on stucco roofs near me and tin roofs in the distance—indeed, the slums are not far from me, at least not geographically. But in terms of social reality they may as well be in another city. Starting with the slate-floored three bedroom apartment I share with two others, replete with 15 foot ceilings and a giant chandelier (holdover style of French colonialism). It’s actually not especially nice by American standards—a smelly toilet-turned-laundry room and incredibly cramped kitchen are not selling points—the $200/mo rent I pay for a private, AC’d room is unfathomable to the majority of Cambodia’s population, who live on $1/day. My tourist-y wanderings of that day would reveal city defined in whole by haves and have-nots. (Hint: Tourists, foreign aid workers, and government officials make up the bulk of the haves.)

Since the other team members had left at 4 a.m. that morning to go to an ECCC forum in another province, I took a tuk-tuk to the to the riverfront without much of a plan. A tuk-tuk is an open-air cabin attached to a motor bike, that, as Angel said, remind her a bit of Disneyland. The riverfront is the heart of the “haves:” as one nears the Mekong river, the number of 5 star hotels, spas, and ritzy restaurants grows at a dizzying rate. My apartment is just outside this bubble.

When I got to the riverfront, I pulled out my map and asked the driver to take me to Wat (Temple) Phnom instead. The Cambodian temples are beautiful in a different way than Seoul’s palace. Both involve bright colors and incredible detail; but Phnom Penh seems more interested in steep, angled roofs and statues resembling lions. There were also real elephants imported to wander near the entrance. (New city slogan? Phnom Penh: not particularly worried about your safety.)


There I met a German woman traveling solo and I accompanied her to the Tuol Sleng Museum. The museum is housed in the same building where Khmer Rouge tortured “confessions” from S-21 inmates from 1975-1979, after having converted it from a school. It looks as if you only wiped the rust off and shooed away the tourists, the detention center could still be in use. It is disturbing in a way words cannot convey, but imaginations can.
I will write a post later detailing the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge, the hybrid Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) trying the leaders three decades later, and how my project fits in. For now, I think the imagery of preserved cells, torture devices, skulls, and photographs of emaciated prisoners give a good idea of the absolute horror that the Cambodian people endured during those four years, when over 20% of the country perished.

Over a silent cup of coffee and smoothie, Katherine and I slowly moved out of our paralyzing depression. By then the team that had traveled to Pursat had returned, and I went to meet them at a restaurant, which Kris (the director) and the map assured me was not more than a 2 minute tuk-tuk ride away. Fifteen minutes later I arrived sweating, frustrated, and newly cognizant that if you can’t direct the driver to your destination, or at least a nearby well-known monument, odds are you won’t get there any time soon. Or at all.

Later that night, I passed up a beautiful tomato salad for fear of stomach explosions. Fresh vegetables, I will miss you.

Important Interruption

Answer to the question, “What exactly is Sam doing in Cambodia?” appears below. I have explained it so many times that I am actually just pasting a section from the Virtual Tribunal’s brochure, with a few parentheses explanations included.

***The core idea of the Virtual Tribunal is to support and enhance the outreach and legacy efforts of the ECCC and the many civil society organizations involved in related transitional justice projects. [Note: ECCC stands for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia—right now the main living leaders of the Khmer Rouge are on trial, 30 years later, for war crimes in a hybrid court, composed of Cambodian and UN officials]. Expanding conventional notions about the archival legacy of a court, the Virtual Tribunal uses cutting-edge information
technology to develop an interactive, multimedia educational resource for both national and international users. For the first time, the vast collection of information relating to the transitional justice process will be accessible to the public in a single interactive and user-friendly digital database. The Virtual Tribunal seeks to encourage greater understanding of the ECCC’s role in Cambodia, and increase access to the work of many civil society organizations working for justice.

The Virtual Tribunal will assist the ECCC in making trial-related materials such as decisions,
filings, trial transcripts and videos of the court proceedings, available to the public. The Virtual Tribunal will link these resources and combine them with expert commentary, educational
discussions, interviews and other multimedia resources. Working in partnership with the ECCC, the Virtual Tribunal Project encourages broad cooperation from Cambodian civil society organizations, schools and media entities in order to build the richest resource possible for Cambodian citizens, schools, and universities, as well as for international audiences, and posterity.****

Wheeewwie, what a mouthful. So in layman’s terms, my work involves communicating with all of these civil society organizations to let them know about the VT and discuss collaborations. This often comes in the form of materials that we can eventually upload to the site (still under construction), but also can involve other arrangements; for example, working with a school to instruct students in how to use the technology—itself an interesting example, since we then have to consider how best to relay the information in provinces without electricity, let alone internet access (exciting possibilities—more on that later). Once we begin receiving more materials, I’ll sort through them, to determine how best to categorize them for search purposes and relevance.

Days 0-1

I don’t know where “Day 1” begins because I have no concept of when Day 0, aka “fly day(s?)” ended. So I’ll start there.

Day 0 was much like a trail-mix bag. The icky raisins included Korean Airlines alerting me one week prior to departure that they’d changed flight schedules by 25 minutes: just enough to ruin my Seoul connection to Phnom Penh. (Get it? Soul Connection?) Other raisin-y moments included sitting on the runway in San Francisco for an hour before beginning the 12 hour flight. (Can you say California traffic? Get it?)

The sweet M&M moments, on the other hand, came when karma caught up on Korean Air and I was bumped into business class after they overbooked economy. At the airport I was met by a friend from childhood, Christina, who is living in Seoul and whom I’d contacted re/ a place to stay. We bussed to her host family’s beautiful downtown flat, and I slept in the room of the child who was visiting family with this mom. The next day we made a small voyage through Seoul before I jumped on a bus back to the airport to catch the flight to Phnom Penh.



It was pouring in Seoul that day. Two weeks in cloudy, drizzly Portland clearly magnetized me, since it had not rained once in the two months Christina had been there. The sheets of water did not prevent me, however, from taking in the city’s skycraper buildings and larger-than-life ads: for new movies, new fashions, new skin-whitening creams, you name it. Traffic was worse than in L.A, but the subway system is awesome—better than any I’ve traveled on, perhaps excepting Berlin. The streets were painted red by the end of the afternoon, as screaming S. Korea soccer fans celebrated the World Cup opening regardless of weather.



Tranquil spaces existed amid the city’s chaotic energy, often preserving remnants of Seoul’s past. Christina and I found an unexpected palace that was so serene and beautiful that it would have looked appropriate shrunken to fit in a Bonsai arrangement. (Christina’s response was, “oh, another one.”) I am so lucky that Christina made what could have been a frustrating situation wonderful—I only wish I’d had more time, and not merely an extended layover, to explore that HUGE city.



A half-full plane took me to the tiny airport of Phnom Penh at 10 p.m. that night. I was met by none of the corrupt customs officials that the guidebook had warned against, and the organization’s lovely driver picked me up, so I couldn’t test the claims about lying cab-drivers. On the drive into town, I stared at the slums lining the highway. Shirtless, skinny men dumped trash onto the sidewalk for sifting, while a naked little boy looked in discarded soda cans for any remaining liquid. I am embarrassed to admit that my thoughts oscillated between “this is terrible” to “I hope this is not near where I’ll be living.”