Memories Lost, Recovered

This is what I remember: A man standing next to his motobike, staring intensely past me. His eyes are focused so hard, I'm sure he can see the past. We're standing in Kampong Thom, a village in Cambodia, and I'm shifting my weight uncomfortably, not knowing where this conversation is headed. I don't remember the man's name, but I do remember his words:

"They're all gone. Dead. My brother. Father. Mother. Sisters. Children. Everyone..."

This is 2003 and I'm in Cambodia for the first time. And I vow I'll never go back.

Shortly after leaving Cambodia for the superficial wonderfulness that is the beaches of Southern Thailand, I wrote in an email:

"[A]bove everything, the poverty was omnipresent and some of the worst I have seen anywhere."

Reading that again, I wince. It's one of the few emails I can find in which I actually talk about my feelings about Cambodia from 2003. I have the strong suspicion that the absence of my words, the sparse record of my feelings was some sort of defense mechanism. I just didn't know how to process what I saw there. So I said nothing.

What I'm left with is my memories.

Mothers with infants begging in the streets. People talking with a sense of profound detachment about losing their family to the Khmer Rouge. Children asking for money if they can name the capital of the state you're from. Landmine victims in the streets, missing legs. Shrapnel wounds...

These are the images I'm left with. These images are what made me flee Cambodia after only 8 days in 2003. But now I'm going back in for 3 months. I'm sure it will be nothing if not intense, but I take comfort in the fact that I am not going back there as a tourist. Instead, I'm going back to work for a process that I believe in, that I believe is working to bring relief, accountability, truth back to the people I met there.

But there's one more image, the one image I can't escape. I'm fleeing Cambodia for the comforts of Thailand, and the Safe Haven is in sight. It's 100 meters away, all that stands in my way is the Cambodian passport control office. And then I see him. He's sitting on the ground because, no doubt, he has to. His body disfigured, covered in burns. But his eyes are intact, searing.

One last stomach punch.