Thanksgiving Southeast Asia Style

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Trip Start Nov 08, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Nov 24, 2007

  Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!! The time here is, of course, 12 hours ahead, so just as you all are about to dig into some yummy, sanitarily prepared turkey and dressing, we have just finished eating at....Outback Steakhouse. Yes, you heard me. And it is one of my carnal sins of traveling to eat at any establsihment that appears to have Westrn influence, mush less one that was born and bred in the US! But Allen really wanted a Bloomin' Onion and since it was Thanksgiving, we broke the rule. (And are thankful that we could!)

You see, we spent the day in Phnom Phen and toured the S21 prison and the Killing Fields at Chaeng Ek. We saw how thousand upon thousand of people were imprisoned, beaten, tortured, raped, mutilated and sent to death in mass graves. They had not broken any rules but were considered "threats" to the Communist regime of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. I cannot go into a lot of detail because it is a long and tragic story, but here is the nutshell version.

The US-backed Republican gov't in the 70's was Lol Non and it was overthrown in 1975 by a huge group of basically peasant workers from the mountains of Cambodia called the Khmer Rouge. Many people were very glad that they had  "liberated" the country from the weak and corrupt gov't but little did they know what was about to happen.

The new organization called "ANGKAR" sent all the people in the cities out to the countryside to work in hard labor camps planting rice and other crops, working out in the heat of 14 hour days with little to no food. Many, many people died of starvation, malnutrition, dysenntery (sp?) and other diseases. If you were an ex- Lol Non gov't employee, educated, spoke another language, wore glasses, were elderly or disabled, you were immediately disposed of. If you became weak or sick while in the camps, you were no longer needed and discarded like an old pair of shoes. People were bludgeoned to death instead so that this motley crew could save their bullets for battle with the Vietnamese and others trying to take over a weakened country.

Please take the time to google this if you can. It is a very sad and very recent story of genocide and similar to what is going on in Darfur today. The atrocoties really only ended in about 1978 or 1979, I think, and people are still trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives with the dirty leftovers from this horrible time in their country's history. Yet, they all smile.

It makes us very thankful to be US citizens and for the thousands of men and women who selflessly defend our freedoms. We are thankful for the rights we have to speak our minds, to go to school, to voice our concerns in our government, to start businesses, to raise our families the way we see fit, to have choices of what foods we will eat for 3 meals a day and snacks if we so choose. And the list goes on and on.

I recall our 24 year old guide in Vietnam asking Allen, "Do you have many people in your city who do not know if they will eat each night or not?" And Allen explained about welfare programs and soup kitchens, etc. He was shocked. He said that many people go to bed hungry here and do not know when they will eat next. And we have seen it all over while on this trip.

Not to put a downer on your Thanksgiving dinner, but I do just want you to remember that today and always, we are blessed by the sheer fact that we were born where we were born and to whom we were born. Allen and I do truly give thanks this year, as we have seen in vivid color how many people in this world live day to day.

We love you all very much and are thankful for the blessing that each of you are to us!

Much love from Bangkok.

Jenna and Allen

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Mass Graves in Killing Fields	S21-Pol Pot Prison	Thousands of Pictures of Prisoners/Victims	Torture Room in S21
Two Young boys outside the killing fields

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