Tuesday, December 8, 2009

A FROG LEAP TO NEW YORK CITY

Now, a new chapter began!

During one week at Sister's Denise's house in Tuol Kork (near Phsar Moan Aing), I rode my bicycle and my brother rode his to report ourselves to the UNTAC Personnel Office near Wat Langka. I was curious about my potential trip to New York for intensive training. Before I left the camp, Dr. Ann Dystra, who was at that time UNBRO coordinator, told me that she had registered me as a candidate for going to New York for the training. I kept going back and forth at least three days before a UN personnel directed me to UNTAC 11 -- the Electoral Office near the French Embassy. There, I met Ms. Mary Murphy (I don't remember what position she was in). I introduced myself and told her that I was a candidate from the border camp Site Two who was nominated by UNBRO to go for computer training in New York. She sent me to an American man, Tom Riddle, who interviewed me and put me in front of the computer as he wanted to know how well I could type. After that, he took me to meet a guy at UNICEF who helped me proceed with the US visa, and later on, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to apply for an exit visa. The next day, Tom took me again to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh. I didn't really understand the process as it was my first time preparing for traveling abroad. It took us quite a number of days to clear everything in processing the visa application.

Here comes the departure day! It was about two weeks from the date I set my foot back in Phnom Penh after 17 years away from this city. Early in the morning of August 17, 1992, many family members of my cousin in two cars (Toyota Camry) took me to the airport. On the way, we stopped at a restaurant right in front of Calmette Hospital to have breakfast. Just as I came out of the restaurant with all the cousins, a Thai UN personnel, Ms. Suchada (sp?), who I met a couple of times during my interaction with UNTAC, ran after me, and quickly pulled money from her purse and handed over to me: "Here is some money for you to use during your trip"; I was kind of stunned with her gesture. I told her the I had a few hundred USD also in my bag, but she told me "that would not be enough-- take it." I accepted the money from her with great thanks, which was around $200 with some few hundred baht. She wished me a good trip and we left right away as we did not want to be late for the flight. Until now I am still now sure whether she actually gave that money to me, or was it a loan. I should have just asked her at that time to clarify, but I seemed to run out of words as she just encouraged me to take it.

After an hour's flight, I arrived in Bangkok, I took a taxi and headed to Comfort Inn, where a room was reserved for me there. I was kind of nervous as I had not had a U.S visa yet, but I need to coordinate with the UNESCAP there in Bangkok. And to be honest, I did not know where is where, as Bangkok was a big city, and I was alone there. I called my former teacher, Fr. John K. Bingham, who was a Jesuit Priest staying in Tapraya close to the Thai-Cambodian border. He was very excited about my trip, but he was concerned that I had to travel alone. He drove down to see me that afternoon. It took him at least 5 hours to get to Bangkok. The next morning, he came to see me at the hotel and took me to the UNESCAP and we went further to the US Embassy to obtain a US visa. The next morning he drove me to the airport, took me to the check-in counter. He even called his brother in New York to come to pick me on my arrival. I had to tie my ponytail with a blue scarf as a sign so that his brother can identify me.

Upon my arrival, Father John's brother and his niece, Mary, were there waiting for me. I also found Tom Riddle, who also came to New York for the same training. We all sat in the car driven by Father John's brother taking us to the hotel YMCA -- I assumed it's the cheapest hotel in New York.

You can imagine how fluctuated my life at that time -- after spending 13 years in the barbed wire camp on the border, I moved to Phnom Penh, my home city where I had been away for 17 years, and only two weeks after I set foot back in this city, I had to travel to New York -- my first international travel. It was really a big move Cambodia-Thai border camp - Phnom Penh City - New York City. That is why I called it a Frog Leap.

I Will tell you more about my impression of New York City

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Becoming a stranger on my own homeland

After the Khmer Rouge regime, all the Khmer Rouge survivors in my family including my mother, my brother and myself could not afford to come back home in Phnom Penh. The main reason for this was that we did not have means of transport, and most of all, we totally lacked of food supplies to feed our mouths for our journey back home. We decided to go to the border as it was nearer to travel by foot. From Battambong province, we walked for at least one whole week to get to Sisophon district where we stayed there for so many months before we continued our walking to Cambodia-Thailand border. We finally ended up in the border camp, where we stayed for over 13 years. There is a lot to tell you about life in the barbed wire camp on the border. I will need to write one whole book to describe what happened in the camp. In this regard, I decided not to talk about it here in this chapter. What I would like to tell you about now is my repatriation from the border camp. After 13 years living and growing up in the Cambodia-Thai border camp, here comes the repatriation process under the auspice of the United Nations as the result of the Paris Peace Accord, in which all the Cambodian conflicting parties were signatories. It was in July 1992, when my family together with thousands of the camp people were transported back to Cambodia. Believe it or not, it was the first time that I set foot in Phnom Penh again after 17 years on evacuation. It was full of excitement and anxiety, the feeling of uncertainty, not knowing what to expect as I hadn't been back to the city since 1975 when the Khmer Rouge had taken control of Cambodia. My mother, my brother and I packed all our necessities, which was not that much, to be honest, as we were not allowed to bring too many baggages, and of course, we did not really have so many valuable belongings. What we brought along were some clothes, and some food stuff and kitchen utencils. The most precious belongings that we brought along were books -- the books that we studied for over ten years in the border camp... my brother got quite a number of medical books and I brought all my English books together with piles of cassettes. We had to stay over night in a transit center waiting for a bus to transport us to Cambodia. The next day came, about 10 buses arrived, and our names were called and we boarded one of the buses, which transported us from Site Two through Aranyaprathet and then headed throught the border at Poi Pet. The bus finally dropped us in Sisophon. Where we had to wait not less than 10 hours until after mid-night for a train to transfer us to Phnom Penh. It took us 14 hours on an old, slow train that crawled on an old and partially damaged railraod. The train departed Sisophon at 2:00 a.m., and arrived a Reception Center at the outskirt of Phnom Penh known as Kop Srov at 4:00 p.m. If you've never experienced traveling on an old train through an old railroad, good luck for you, we were totally lost after 14 hours trip. We felf as if we were swinging all the time even though we sat still. After three days there at the reception center, we were transported to our final destination in Phnom Penh. While we were ready to load our belongings on the bus, this is what happened: Hi Samneang, I am glad to see you here Hi Sister Denise, me too, I am glad to see you again here on my home country Samneang, these are my friends. Sister Denise introduced a few friends of hers to me while she also introduced me to them. Her friends started to converse with me with curiosity. How long were you in the border camp? One of her friends asked. 13 years, I replied Where was your hometown? Here in Phnom Penh, but I haven't been here for the last 17 years since the Khmer Rouge took control of the country, this is my first time coming back to Phnom Penh. Are you by yourself? No, I am with my mother and my brother. They are over there safeguarding the luggage as we are waiting for a call to board the bus. Where is your father? I was totally stunned when hearing this question. My emotion started immediately as I was trying to tell the guests that my father lost his life during the Khmer Rouge, but my words never came out of my mouth. Those words were dried up and they were replaced with tears dropping from both my eyes. I did not even think about my father until this question was asked. All the memories had come to my mind -- I left this city with a whole crowd of 10 family members which included my father. Now only three left. The other seven had left this world because of starvation, over workload and they were falling very ill and they all died. Now that we came back, they were not with us anymore... they were buried in the forests, which I had no clue how to go back there to find their graves. I definitely did not want to show this kind of emotion, but I couldn't do any better than this no matter how much I tried to show that I was strong. I know that my emotion had put the guests in a difficult position. They must have felt bad to ask me such a sensitive question. Understanding my emotional feeling, sister Denise quickly patted my back to console me. She continued with "where are you going to go now?" Her question even made me more emotional as I had no idea where I was going to go. I was sobbing while answering Sister Denise'question with my deep emotion.... "I have nowhere to go". It was too bad, I made the whole group feel emotional as well. But I had to apologize that I could not handle the situation any better. I should have been proud and happy that I was finally able to come back to my home city. But it was completely the opposite. I felt so much as being dumped into the sea where I could not see the horizon, particularly for that moment. Sister Denise quickly offered me to go to her house. She immediately went to the bus and explained to the bus driver her address where later he brought me and my family there. Sister Denise was a catholic nun. She was my former teacher in the camp. But she moved to Cambodia earlier with the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) to do a project to help Cambodia. It is not an easy situation when you are in your own country but you felt as if you are in a new world where you cannot find any support network, which you need so badly to at least give you some orientation in terms of what you can and cannot do. But in my case, I was totally unstable. I left Phnom Penh when I was 11 years of age, and at the time I returned, I was 28 years old... So it was 17 years away from home. I can hardly put in words how sad I felt at the time I arrived in Phnom Penh, and how much I appreciated Sister Denise's offer for us to stay at her house for one whole week before we could figure out where our next destination.