This morning our team decided to visit one of the killing field around Phnom Penh. This particular one is call Choeung Ek, and is where many of the Cambodians detained and tortured at Tuol Sleng were brought to be executed. After the Vietnames overthrew the Khmer Rouge, they discovered the mass graves, some with bodies not yet covered by dirt. Many of the bodies were exhumed in the investigation of the genocide, so the field is pitted with empty mass graves.
Walking the grounds you still find evidence of the killings. The yearly cycle of rain and hot weather bring bits of clothing, bones and teeth to the surface, driving home the reality of this place. I found a button, a profound reminder that someone once put on a shirt on April 17, 1975, not aware that hours later they would be ushered out of the city, and would wear that same shirt every day until they were massacred.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to take a picture of a phenomenally large lake. Our tuk-tuk driver explained that it was a man-made lake, dug by hand by thousands of Cambodians as the Khmer Rouge moved the nation backwards into stone age agriculture. Thousands of Cambodians died of exhaustion, disease and starvation completing this massive rice paddy. Unfortunately, most of the rice was exported to China in exchange for weapons, so the labourers never saw a return from their slave labour.
What a sad legacy Pol Pot left the world. How different Fairview's legacy will be when we leave Rahab's House.
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