When you first arrive in Cambodia you are immediately present to a sadness in the air. The people are very kind yet very heavy in spirit at the same time. The sadness that hangs is very hard to explain.
Yesterday, we got an insight into the sadness at the request of our ministry contact. We went to visit Tuol Sleng; Tuol Sleng was a high school; in 1975 it became the site for one of the greatest genocides ever known. 10’s of thousands of people were killed there in a four year period; men, women, and children.
We toured the former school and saw the primative torture devices used, electrical prods, and a gallows. We saw the photos of hundreds of the faces that lost their lives there, we saw paintings depicting the travesties they had encountered, we saw a few skulls found on the site. It was so difficult to walk through; the sadness was so heavy…then I just for a moment got a glimmer of the sadness that hangs over Cambodia.
Almost every person here who walks the streets was affected by the horrific genocide at Tuol Sleng; they have lost grandparents, parents, friends, or children there. We met a man yesterday who was one of the last survivors of the prison camp he is now 80 and he was spared longer than the others because he had a needed skill repairing typewriters. He showed us his scars and recounted some of what he had experienced there.
The tragedy of the genocide and seeing images of what happened to the people is almost as horrifying as the fact that it is still going on in different parts of the world; like Burma. Please pray that Genocide stops in places like Burma and please pray for precious Cambodia that the sadness that hangs will be lifted.
I love you all, Carla reporting from Cambodia
