Rachel Murphy is currently serving as the travel manager for PTPI’s Educational and Humanitarian Initiative to Cambodia and Vietnam. The group left on Thursday, December 3, 2009. Stay tuned for more updates from Rachel here on the PTPI Blog, follow Rachel’s updates on Twitter, or read more on her blog.
Monks stroll the grounds of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
We’re moving at the speed of light, not sound. In a day we went from the devastating and damning evidence of human depravation in S-21 and the Killing Fields to the sublime beauty of the National Museum and the Royal Palace. These things even Pol Pot didn’t touch, for many reasons.
Staring at pictures in S-21 (also known as the Genocide Museum), I’m struck by one in particular. I’ve been here before and I know where it is. She stares at me with coal black eyes and in her arms is a baby. Something about her face reminds me of my sister. Maybe it’s the intensity of the expression or the curve of her eyebrows. Only 14 people survived S-21. I doubt that she was one of them.
Human skulls of the victims of the Khmer Rouge at the Genocide Museum
Heading to Siem Reap, we’re going from seeing atrocity to dealing with it. Our first stop is The HALO Trust Compound. Located outside of the city, HALO is in the dirt and digging, removing landmines as fast as possible. Siem Reap is located close to the K5 beltway of landmines that runs along the Thai-Cambodian border, and HALO is trying to find a way though it.
Host Laurie at the HALO compound explains the magnitude of the landmine problem
Our host’s name is Laurie and he’s what every organization wants as a point man, well spoken, funny, British. He lays out in a PowerPoint presentation the details of the mine laying activities of the last 30 years—three countries, thousands dead and maimed and millions of mines still left to clear. With an annual operating budget of $4 million, they are in danger of falling short of their needs by the 4th quarter of 2010. The $1,000 that our PTPI delegation has donated today is much needed. (Read more about PTPI’s work with HALO at this previous blog post, A Conversation with Kurt Chesko from The HALO Trust.)
Moving past the numbers, we get a chance to see the equipment, the process and the amount of time that each mine takes to find and remove. The people who are working are articulate, experienced and passionate, dedicated to a seemingly endless war with a faceless enemy.
The numbers are daunting and the organization is inspiring, but it’s not at HALO that the point is driven home. It’s walking through a morning market. Flies buzz around and water drips from pans of fish still flopping and vegetables draining. It creates a thick soup of mud on the ground. It splatters the back of my legs as I stroll through, drinking in the overwhelming cacophony of sights and smells.
And as I look ahead, I see a man. Not walking through the market, but crawling. The lower half of his right leg is missing and he has no crutch. He’s not begging. He’s simply making his way through the muck and grime on his hands and knees with all the strength in his emaciated body. People are rushing by in the narrow alley, not pausing. He’s not abnormal here. He’s just another victim. He’s not the first landmine victim that I’ve seen, nor will he be the last. But he is the one that drove it home.
When we talk about numbers and statistics it’s easy to let the faces blend together into one horrific image. But tragedy happens to individuals. This man had a chance at life that was destroyed by this injury. In a country where the average annual income is $650 per able-bodied person, what hope does a man with one leg stand? But he kept going forward.
It’s easy to become trapped in a cycle of depression when faced with the reality of human nature. We find ways to hurt each other, control each other, gain power no matter what the cost. But that’s not the point of exposing yourself to the truth. Seeing the reality of this situation not only saddens me, it forces me to act. To consider my decisions, to focus on my needs rather than my wants. It creates an opportunity to change my course, and hopefully that of others by example. In an interconnected world, I can only hope that my witness of those that crawl can allow others to stand and walk forward.
