Cambodia Revelrie


Cambodia revelrie...

This country and its people have opened my heart by surprise....MAGICAL is the word that comes to mind. It is warm - in every sense one can imagine. It is primal. It is ancient....and it is kind. It is not a naiive kindness, though - it is an expression of deep humanity by the people who have suffered deeply in ways that are difficult to wrap one's mind around, and that make one's heart cry with bloody tears. In a wild jungle container there are held the extremes of the human experience - from the grandeur and inexplicable mythical beauty of the elusive Khmers' Temple-Cities to the haunting vastness of the Killing Fields [http://www.galenfrysinger.com/killing_fields.htm] and the modern-day suntan-generating smiles of the next generation....the generation that came out of the jungle to recover from the rape that the Pol Pot regime has committed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge].

I have never breathed as freely or connected as powerfully to a place and people as I have here. This culture is as intertwined with nature as the the muscular roots of the jungle are with the pillars of the Temple Cities. People here still live off the land and boil their tea water on an earth-pit fire. There is connectedness here between the people - both deeply human, survival-level caring and the light-hearted, good-humoured kind - simple gestures of affection virtually extinct in the so-called "1st world countries." An apotheosis of Cambodian humour and the enduring ability to smile even through the harrowing experience of Khmer Rouge was a toilet seat encased in glass at a local guesthouse entitled: "Pol Pot's seat of Power. Even Pol Pot had shitty days." Apparently, the seat has been evacuated from his house after the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. No question about it, there is heart here in spades. I could stay here a while. This atmosphere is bringing out layers of humanity in me that I have never seen, and I like it.

P.S. Some pieces of the blog [like the Phnom Penh segment on Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields] will be posted out of sequence, since I have been summoning up the heart to write about them - I'm still digesting the experience of coming face to face with the gruesome evidence of this tragedy.

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