Sawatdee Kah again from Bangkok!

Sawatdee Kah again from Bangkok!
We've been back from Cambodia for a week and it's taken me this long to digest the experience enough to write to you about it. Overall it was a fabulous trip, well planned and filled with meetings with amazing organizations. It was also heartwrenchingly dreadful
and disturbing on many levels.


I'm the only participant who had actually been to Cambodia before; I traveled in Phnom Penh (the capitol) and Siem Riep (site of Angkor Wat) while backpacking in early 1997. To say that the country is different after 11 years of development is an enormous understatement. My memory is of unpaved roads, bicycles, nighttime curfews resulting in darkness and quiet (with an underlying unsafe feeling), and a mere smattering of tourists. I remember finding the one
English Language bookstore and internet cafe in Phnom Penh and wandering around the temples of Angkor Wat in vague solitude. Now it's a completely different scene. In 1997 there
were 2 hotels in Siem Riep; now there are 90 hotels with 30 more being built, and there are restaurants, internet shops, and cars/busses/motorcycles everywhere on the paved roads. In 1994 (the only statistics I could find) there were 8,000 visitors to Angkor Wat; in 2007 there were 1 or 2 million (the number is in question due to corruption in ticket sales; crazier
still, Angkor Wat is managed by a foreign company, so the country doesn't even get the $.) To say that I was blown away by the development is an understatement; I
hesitate to believe I was in the same country.


The first few days of our studies focused on the Khmer Rouge years of power 1975-1979. We visited The Killing Fields (too disturbing to be human), S21 torture center (former school), and even had dinner with one of the three remaining survivors of S21. We visited a rural village created to resettle former Khmer Rouge soldiers. We visited the ECCC (Extraordinary Chamber
in the Court of Cambodia), the court being built by the international community to try the top 5 living Khmer Rouge commanders (to the tune of $170 million in a country where it's considered good if people earn $1/day). We spent a lot of time in a complete daze as the realities of why 70% of the current Cambodian population is under the age of 30 crept in; our daze matched theirs, but for different reasons. Their historical trauma is mindblowing; while there are amazing NGOs trying to help, there's a long road ahead. (Note: There are only two trained psychologists in the entire country.)



Here's an excerpt from an email I sent from Phnom Penh:
In the past 2 days we've visited The Killing Fields, S21, and a recently created village 4 hours from the city of former Khmer Rouge soldiers. I'm incredibly impressed with the program that they're showing us all sides. Stepping into the main memorial at The Killing
Fields, with the 11 (I think) levels of the tower of skulls, I immediately felt the pain of the 8,985
people who died there; it was unbearable, and I cried and prayed for the remainder of the tour, trying (unsuccessfully) to bring in light and love, stepping over the clothes continually being unearthed coming up onto the surface of the ground in between the mass graves. At S21 I took about 1/2 of the tour and then opted out, having seen and felt enough of the horrendous torture that happened to the victims there. I crossed the street to spend time at an NGO that
exists to give handicraft training to people handicapped by polio and landmines.



Sigh.


The middle few days we split into three issue groups with different NGO and government visits: Labor Movement (the group I chose due to my continued teaching at the National Labor College in D.C.), Land Conflict, and Anticorruption / Good Governance. The question we all resonated with at the end was "Is the system corrupt or is corruption the system?" We all
agreed it's the latter.


Two days at Angkor Wat finished the Field Study. We even got 1/2 day free (the first time!). We returned to Bangkok with one day off before starting classes again. With a full week of daytime classes and nighttime films then moving immediately into 10 days of 7:30am - 9pm most days, one day off was like heaven(especially for all of our laundry).


Since returning from Cambodia, classes have been on: Truth Commissions and Social Justice, Capacity Building in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration. As previously mentioned, some classes/speakers prove better and more useful than others.

Topics coming up in the next two weeks are: Economic Recovery, Governance and Rule of Law, Moral Component of Peace Building, Convergence and Divergence of Faith, Building Peace Zones in Post Conflict Situations, Case Study: Sri Lanka (which will be
fascinating since my closest friend here is Sri Lankan), and Building Networks and Alliances.
This weekend we're off on a Field Study again, this time 3 hours out of Bangkok to the Camillian Social Center to learn about the HIV/AIDS situation and Sex
Industry in Thailand.

On a more personal note, I've become quite close with a few people on the program and am already collaborating on brainstorming ideas for future work together. Notably is Paskaran, previously mentioned Sri Lankan friend who also does Theatre of the Oppressed work, who is helping me heal (he's the Ayurvedic Doctor). Anas, the Nigerian judge/Immam says
I'm Paski's interpreter - Paski's accent isn't the easiest to understand but he and I speak theatrical body language with each other so I can almost always understand him. We laugh together constantly and are planning an Invisible Theatre outing in a local market
on campus for our Peer Learning session on Friday of this week. The more I learn about his home situation, which I have because I typed his Individual Conflict Analysis paper for him, the more blown away I am by his awesomeness and ability to create change. Have you read about the recent increase in violence in Sri Lanka? 85 people killed this past weekend alone. While we were in Cambodia, two of his friends - a reporter and a photographer - were arrested.
I've also spent more time with my Rotary Host Counselor Krich, visiting and meditating at a
beautiful Wat (temple), wandering the largest outdoor market in SE Asia (on perhaps the hottest day of the year - around 100 degrees with 85% humidity), and sharing an amazing meal. I've also enjoyed seeing Heng, my Australian-Cambodian friend who still works
for The Scholar Ship, whenever our schedules mesh.

The program is starting to wind down and I'm not ready for it to end. I'll have much assimilating of information/experiences and brainstorming to do once it's all over, and plan to spend a lot of time writing and creating ideas for future education/training programs upon my return. The coursework and field studies have kept us so busy that internal reflection
has only just begun. Graduation is on April 10, complete with presentations
from our small groups on our learning. I'm the leader of a group of 5 (Paski from Sri Lanka, Jennifer from DR Congo, Assabah from Kashmir, and Joy from Australia/Philippines) who are using theatrical techniques to show IBB (interest based bargaining) amongst other topics. On April 11 we'll have a 6 hour evening just for us to eat, drink, celebrate, and get closure; I was the first to sign up for the small committee to plan it.

Tomorrow night I will have the pleasure of having dinner with Sharon Starr and 5 other members of Rotary District 5100 as they are here to visit a project they work on in Northern Thailand. I’m trying to gather some of my fellow classmates to join us so their time in our class on Thursday morning is more personal and meaningful.

Peace,
-Stephanie