Let Them Stay Kids

I know it's all around me. I know I encounter it on a daily basis. I know it's at the heart of the country. But I will never be able to fully understand it.

A few nights ago, I took my $.75 street noodles into my host family's bedroom (which also serves as a living/dining room, in true Khmer fashion), and ate with them on the floor. I would have eaten the food they made for dinner, but their diet is strongly fish based and I don't want to inconvenience them with my vegetarian needs.

As I ate, with Sina (husband), Chivy (wife), and Nichola (5 year old boy), I remarked on how smart and fun Nichola is to be around, and how wonderful it is that he and his 1-year old brother Felix are always smiling and seem so happy. To which Sina replied, "We want them to stay kids for as long as they can, and to enjoy their childhood." My mind immediately went to the thousands of kids across Cambodia who work on the street with their parents, begging, selling, and collecting garbage. Or the children who are sold and trafficked into other countries and local brothels. I thought that Sina was implying that he and his wife work hard to provide well for their family so they can stay kids and not have to work at such a young age - a common sentiment among middle class parents around the world. Because of course Sina couldn't be talking about the other thing.

But Sina continued, "Because you know when I was his age, we had the Khmer Rouge." Oh, there it is! While I know Pol Pot's regime, resulting in mass genocide of 25% of the population, was recent, in the 70's, it was before I was born, resulting in my skewed sense of time perception. For some reason, I assumed Sina and Chivy were born after this period, in a sort of Cambodian baby-boom generation after libreation from the camps. But no, they were there. Sina was in camps, having gone to France as a refugee (he, and therefore his sons, have duel nationality). Chivy was born during the regime, and lived in an orphanage, separated from her mother at the beginning of her life.

We didn't talk much more about it, as we went on to talk about our days and some of my work at the theatre. But it really made me think. I had already thought that I wanted to talk to Chivy's mother about her experiences during the war when I know her a bit better and language isn't as much of a barrier, a woman of 70 strong years. But now I see that it's not just the elderly, it's the strong middle agers, it's the people who are just a decade older than me. The same people who honk and ask if I need a moto, the kind woman in the shop next to the theatre where I buy my Coke Zero every morning, the men who work in the theatre, working hard yet always stopping to rest and eat.

I am surrounded by survivors. And they are truly amazing.