{"id":4039,"date":"2016-03-07T04:13:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T11:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4039"},"modified":"2016-03-07T04:13:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T11:13:42","slug":"cambodia-the-buddha-and-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/07\/cambodia-the-buddha-and-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Cambodia, the Buddha and the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Monks<\/a>
Temple monks at lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We weren’t supposed to bomb Cambodia, but we did. \u00a0I remember the day that the revered Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield first learned of Nixon’s “secret” attack on what seemed to be a gentle, somewhat innocent country for which he held considerable affection. \u00a0 He\u00a0was almost trembling with rage. \u00a0I know now that his anger arose from what he knew would happen to Cambodia as a result of this assault on a nation so far not actively involved in the conflict.<\/p>\n

\"Buddha1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the tenets of Buddhism described by our guide YuKu; they inspired gentle Cambodia then and still do today: Neutralism, Tolerance, Compassion and Sympathy; Learn to know,\u00a0Learn to do,\u00a0Learn to be,\u00a0Learn to live together. In many ways, our bombing wiped out the capacity\u00a0to follow them.<\/p>\n

In the years before Richard Nixon ordered the bombings in 1970 (there were, <\/em>to be fair,\u00a0Viet Cong racing over the Vietnamese border into Cambodia to avoid US and South Vietnamese troops) Buddhism offered a foundation, and\u00a0the Cambodian economy was growing well. The bombs put an end to that growth and threw the country into the vicious chaos that brought on the killing fields. In thosse terrible years, the Khymer rouge herded most of the people into the countryside to farm. \u00a0Those who were were well educated\u00a0were often executed instead. \u00a0More than 2 million met torture and death.<\/p>\n

For me, the visit to the temple and the rest of our day were haunted by my growing awareness of just what our bombs had retarded or destroyed. \u00a0Not just temples and Buddhas. \u00a0Not even just the futures of\u00a0the educated or political. \u00a0No.<\/p>\n

We destroyed lives.<\/p>\n

Cambodia has had to build or rebuild much of its infrastructure from roads to hospitals to schools.<\/p>\n

We visited a school. \u00a0And we met Monica.<\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5314_1024\"<\/a>
Second-grader Monica, “#1 student” in her class — 41 kids jammed three to a desk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We all know poor countries have fewer resources to educate their children but the gap between our worst school and this one is pretty big. The kids go to school free but must buy their books, workbooks and supplies. And the teachers? Their documents and supplies are stored in a dusty filing cabinet in the one-room office. Not a computer in sight.<\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5324_1024\"<\/a>
Monica and her 40 classmates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5337_1024\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5328_1024\"<\/a>
The school library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a tiny school that lets tours pass through once in a while. \u00a0I know it’s a tourist resource but there is no way to fake 41 kids singing to you about hygiene and brushing their teeth. \u00a0Or to imagine the poverty and determination that surrounds their classroom. \u00a0They lost so many years — maybe chunks of a generation, in fact, and are still far from recovered from those years.<\/p>\n

For the village farmers it is the same. \u00a0The simplicity of their homes and paucity of resources is shattering.<\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5341_1024\"<\/a>
The “spirit house” and, behind it, the outhouse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"thumb_IMG_5349_1024\"<\/a>
The “living room” and bedroom for all but the girls who sleep behind a jerry-rigged door because “girls need privacy.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"thumb_IMG_5348_1024\"<\/a>
The rest of the living space, next to the TV<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"thumb_IMG_5342_1024\"<\/a>
The pantry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"thumb_IMG_5346_1024\"<\/a>
The kitchen (pardon the shadows)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part of the reason it is so painful to remember those days, whether here in Cambodia or in the US, where US universities exploded and four students died at Kent State at the hands of the National Guard, is that it doesn’t take long to determine that there is a basic sweetness in the Cambodian people that ill-prepared them to face down what landed upon them once the bombs began to fall.<\/p>\n

You can see it in the face of our guide here as he sang to us before we left the bus to fly to Vietnam. \u00a0I know this post is all over the place but I kept rewriting it and there’s so much more to tell you about that I’m just going to leave it as a meditation on a terrible time. \u00a0Being in Cambodia and even more in Vietnam (that’s next) has awakened all kinds of things in me. \u00a0Which is what is travel is for. \u00a0It doesn’t help Monica and her friends though.<\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_5354_1024\"<\/a>
Our sweet, excellent guide YuKu singing us a farewell at the end of our day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  We weren’t supposed to bomb Cambodia, but we did. \u00a0I remember the day that the revered Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield first learned of Nixon’s “secret” attack on what seemed to be a gentle, somewhat innocent country for which he held considerable affection. \u00a0 He\u00a0was almost trembling with rage. \u00a0I know now that his … Continue reading Cambodia, the Buddha and the Past<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6,27,7,9,98,78],"tags":[3731,3739,3744,3738,3743,3736,3741,3742,2649,1585,2621,3295,3737],"class_list":["post-4039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-culture","category-current-affairs","category-life","category-politics","category-religion","category-travel","tag-seabourn-seabourncruise","tag-bombing","tag-buddha","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist","tag-cambodia","tag-gentle","tag-killing-fields","tag-monks","tag-richard-nixon","tag-seabourn","tag-seabourncruise","tag-sihanouk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-139","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4077,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions\/4077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}