I’m one of the few Americans who does not particularly enjoy Thanksgiving. I find it stressful, I’m not a huge fan of traditional Thanksgiving foods, and it is placed so close to both Veterans Day and Christmas on the calendar that I think it would be more useful in March or August when you’ve been in long period of no days off.
I haven’t met many Americans so far in Cambodia so I didn’t find anyone who was longing for a Thanksgiving. This is the third time in the past four years that I have spent the holiday on my own so I wasn’t too upset because I didn’t have my turkey.
 |
| S-21 |
I arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to the museum at the site of the former S-21 prison of the Khmer Rouge. The site was a school that had been repurposed as a prison and you could still see how it looked like a school. The buildings still were set up as classrooms, except for lines set apart every few feet, indicating where a cell wall had been located; one of the buildings still had the cells intact. The playground equipment was still in the yard. Only later is it revealed that the equipment had been utilized as instruments of torture. The area is full of flowers and palm trees; the complex is still surrounded by double metal walls and barbed wire. The museum was emotionally draining and I went back and had a pretty low key evening.
 |
| Excavated graves |
 |
| Memorial stupa |
The next morning I rented a bike and rode an hour through Cambodian traffic to the Killing Fields at Cheung Ek. I was shocked at just how small the complex is. The prisoner drop off, detention center, and office were all within ten meters of each other. No buildings were left after the war so the complex is just fields, along with a memorial near the entrance. As I looked out, the fields are marked with depressions in the earth. It looked a little strange at first but I later learned that these were the sites of graves not massive enough to designate with extra signs. I spent a few hours taking in the area and learning about the Khmer Rouge. At the entrance (and the end of the tour) is a memorial.
This stupa is filled with bones so high that it was impossible to stand in it and see what was in the levels near the top; a photograph could only capture maybe a quarter of it in any given shot.
I had an hour ride back to Phnom Penh in the early afternoon heat to contemplate everything I had learned in the past 24 hours. This genocide is so recent that I have met Cambodians who are not too old and remember relatives fleeing the country. I have never been one to take account of what I have; this is the first Thanksgiving where I felt compelled to think through what I take for granted in my daily life. This trip as a whole has made me much more aware of what I have come to assume is normal but is actually a sign of privilege. However, spending Thanksgiving seeing the mechanisms of genocide first hand was by far the most thankful that I have ever felt for all that I take for granted in my life.
