So yesterday was all screwed up because I was going off Korea time all day instead of Cambodia. (Hint: Smartphones aren't that smart without their wireless). Because of this time slip I ended up sleeping for probably close to 16 hours, mainly because I was confused. Since all I'd eaten was Pringles and some non-juice type cocktail, I decided to do breakfast at the hotel. Pancakes and Bacon. Going to be honest, tomorrow I will stick with just fruit. I met one of the other program participants at breakfast who is looking to go to medical school for oncology, Robert. On my way back up to my room from breakfast I met my neighbor Charlie, who invited me to go with him to the Killing Fields. Though early for an education of genocide I decided to just take the opportunity and say yes. We probably drove for 20 minutes before pulling up to some cement, two room building where we were sat at a table and were handed what looked like a menu of artillery we could shoot, the cost, and the number of bullets. Shooting an AK-47 was $40 and you could shoot a rocket launcher for $350 or throw a hand grenade for $50. Now I don't know where in that room it would have been safe to fire off any of those things, particularly the last two, but regardless I declined the offer as did Charlie. Our driver then drove us to the Killing Fields which is something that everyone should know about, similar to the Holocaust, but less people actually do. Because it is extremely depressing I'm just going to do a quick summary so anyone who doesn't know can be less ignorant. In 1975, this guy Pol Pot came into Cambodia and fucked shit up. Cambodia was already a little shambly from America dropping bombs on them in the Vietnam war. Pol Pot had an idea to make some extreme communist community so he basically rounded up people that were educated, or not...yah basically he took everyone he could round up, and brought them in trucks to this place in Phnom Penh that eventually became known as the killing fields. Very similar to Auschwitz, but I think it was more outdoor based. So in about three years Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had killed nearly 2-3 million people out of a population of 8 million in the country. Think about it this way, if 1 out of every 4 people you know was murdered in the US. Now if anyone every asks you about the Genocide in Cambodia, you better remember who told you. As you can imagine it was a very somber after breakfast excursion. This was all done by about eleven in the afternoon.
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| Stupa that contains preserved remains of victims of the Killing Fields |
At twelve nearly everyone in the group came out to do the city tour. It has only been a few hours, but as of now I can honestly say I like everyone I've met so far. No ones pissed me off, irritated me, or annoyed me which is a really solid start and 9 out of the 12 or 13 people are going to Thailand too. The city tour included a Wat which was cool, but to you guys it will probably just look like I took a million pictures of the same place, a visit to the Royal Palace which was also very beautiful, followed by a visit to the shopping center I had visited the day before. By the time we got back it was 5 o'clock and I was exhausted and still had to shower before our 6:30 dinner that didn't actually start til 7. Dinner was good, but I was so tired I could barely eat. I just wanted to fall asleep in my friend rice, which was delightful by the way. Dinner was also the first time we got to meet all of the staff. I learned that instead of being in Cambodia for four weeks its actually two and that I will be going to Angkor Wat next week. I also learned the last two weeks are training in Pattaya and this will require evaluations where I actually have to be observed teaching in front of a class. I'm very nervous for this part, but that's kind of why I'm here in the first place so I have to do it. The other thing I learned at dinner is all the people who work for LanguageCorps did the program and basically never left. It makes me a little nervous kind of like Never Never Land or Hotel California. Anyways it's almost 10pm and I literally feel like crying because I am so tired. I will try and update whenever I can, but as of now I actually have shit to do so that will have to come first.
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