There is a jaw bone in the ground, the rains have washed the mud away and exposed it. Farther along a piece of red fabric sticks out of the ground. I stop scrutinizing the ground, horrified.
Nicole clings to me. None of us have spoken a word since we arrived. The stupa towers above us. It is filled from top to bottom with skulls, many smashed in. The only sound in the air is the hum of insects and the crunch of our shoes on the path. It is blistering hot. The sun beating down on a site that from a distance seems so unassuming.
We come along a tree. There is a sign and a drawing describing what the tree was used for. Children and infants were bashed to death against this tree. We are all shaking when we leave, we still can not speak. I am afraid if I speak that I will just weep uncontrollably. We are shocked out of our Western comfort zone into the realities of history like a bullet out of a gun.
Later we sit solemnly at a bar having a drink. I find myself staring at every face wondering what secrets lie behind it. That night my dreams are filled with bloody trees.
Between 1975-1979, it is estimated that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered approximately 1.7 million people. The population of Montreal is approx. 1.7 million people.
November 15th, 2010 - 3:50 am
It is times like those that we remember exactly how lucky we are. It’s important to visit everything a country has…the good and the bad, especially when the bad is so recent as it colors everything about being there. It’s supposed to be hard…so that we don’t forget.