At the start of this year, I was incredibly fortunate to join a work trip to Cambodia—I can only really describe it as the trip that changed everything.
Between you and me, I’ve been rolling this blog idea around in my head for the past 10 months, because every time I go to write it, I sit with my hands resting on the keypad, each one looking like an obedient soldier waiting for orders from basecamp that didn’t seem to want to come. (Ground control to Major Tom! Anyone home?!)
But then I realised what was holding me back were a few questions I couldn’t answer:
- How is the best way to come at this?
- How would I do this trip justice?
I decided my 13 hour flight back to Europe was the perfect opportunity to get the laptop out and drain my brain of everything that had happened over the past week. This was going to be a brain dump of what happened so I could preserve those precious first impressions.
Because you only get one first impression and first impressions are gold dust.
Never ignore a first impression. When nothing makes sense or you don’t know what your next move should be, there is infinite value in going back to those first impressions you don't give a second thought to. More often than not, they tell you something you need to know. Hindsight is 20/20 but so often we forget to go back to understand what we missed and how to build a story from it.
The traditional Cambodian krama scarf
So, as I sit in the darkness of this metal tube, blasting through the night sky somewhere over the Indian Ocean (wedged in-between 2 sleeping strangers), my typing kicks up a gear. If you weren’t already asleep in the cabin, I’m pretty sure you might be wondering where that faint whirring sound was coming from as each memory ticked over loudly in my head.
No internet, damn. Oh well.
That means, no Grammarly and no ChatGPT… good time to get some writing practice in, right? *laughs in writer’s self-doubt*
With each hour that passes, blank white pages become stitched with words and turn to lace.
So here goes…
It doesn’t take long to realise upon landing in Cambodia that something very, very wrong happened here and what remains is still very much running through the veins of its people, along the rivers that slice across the rice fields they tend, and behind that unwavering Khmer smile that greets you wherever you go.
First impressions when travelling don’t normally make a lot of sense on their own. They exist suspended in time, swept along until they’re ready to settle. All you can do is take it all in and see where they take you later.
I am curious to see where this country takes me.
The brakes of the van bring us to a halt outside a farm house which appears to be floating on stilts over two meters above the ground. We gather under Howl’s Castle to take refuge in its shade.
A boy - nay, an old man - comes climbing down from a coconut tree and walks over to greet us. Out of habit, my palms come together and I feel my neck curve downwards. He could be 20 or 70 years old - it was hard to say. I only hope my bow is low enough not to offend.
He politely offers us some moonshine before wiping his brow and joining his three daughters and wife at the table. We begin to ask him questions and his eldest daughter translates for us.
Biking along on day two, I realise the young schoolgirl riding her bike next to mine had taken her hand off her bike’s handle bar and was pointing at a dog lying on the dirt road. She made the sound “chkae”.
I point and say “dog” and then say “woof” - like a dog. She laughs and does the same and it sounds nothing like a dog but we both laugh anyway.
The bike convoy rolls into the schoolyard, and we’re met with hundreds of waves, hugs, smiles, and traditional krama scarves draped around our necks by the schoolchildren. I can’t tell who is more excited—us or them.
These bikes we rode in on are a very special delivery for a group of pupils who need them most. The children who will be receiving them live the farthest away, have the biggest odds to overcome and just by sitting in a classroom, are committing a rebellious act. The parents raising these chilren have lived through a time when having an education got you killed and blending in was a survival skill.
One girl got up to speak to the room. Her mum looked on terrified, but supportive.
Her voice shook from nerves as she spoke to her fellow students, the parents of the students, her teachers, village chiefs and her foreign guests about always trying her best, being a good person, and again, always trying her best.
It was never about us ‘visiting’ them at school or ‘giving’ them bikes. It was about showing them they are not alone; there are people all around the world advocating for them and ready to support whatever they want to do to build a better life - however they want that to look when they use their incredible and boundless imaginations to create it.
On the last day, I was apprehensive. We were told we would visit a high school where we would talk to the students about their futures and instill our wisdom on them. What on earth did I have to say? I was a terrible student and only put in effort when I was aiming for the bare minimum.
One student got up and shared her story. I didn’t think I would be crying today, but there I was, wiping my eyes with my krama, wondering how this incredible human dared to defy her family, her village, her peers, and every obstacle in her fight for education.
Every single person had let her down on her path to get to this point.
Her parents didn’t want her to go to school.
Her friends at school told her she didn’t belong there.
Her teachers openly looked down on her.
I sit there utterly enraptured as she recounts memories, switching between first-person and third-person. I imagine this teenager standing in front of me as a 5-year-old girl, alone, having only herself to trust in a world that has tried so hard to keep her down.
Against all odds, she was a spirit that could not be crushed.
A humbling welcome from the students at the high school
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher, argued in his "Prison Notebooks," during his own imprisonment under Mussolini’s regime, that even under the most oppressive conditions, human beings don’t lose their capacity for imagination and original thought.
This is a controversial idea that many people would argue against, but after my trip to Cambodia, I have no doubt in my mind that this is true.
There are many things you can take from a person; home, livelihood, family, life. You can shatter the very foundations of a person by destroying everything that’s familiar, loving and valuable. Strip them of everything that matters - or at least what you think matters - while keeping them in a constant state of fear and uncertainty.
It is unforgivable what the few in power inflict on people in wartime and through regimes that commit genocide, but what the oppressors never consider is that even if you think you can take everything from a person, there are still some things that no one, not ever, can take from you.
An imagination in shackles is the last frontier.
Suppressing the imagination is one of the most powerful tools of oppression, as it disconnects people from the potential for a future beyond the present constraints. By stripping away this capacity, those in power effectively cut off the first step toward liberation.
We only need to ask ourselves: who were the first people to be killed during the Khmer Rouge?
They were the creatives: artists, musicians, writers, teachers, storytellers, academics and anyone who showed resistance to a regime that went on to kill between 1.3 and 2.8 million Cambodians (or 30% of the population) with steadfast support and weapons from the US.
Resistance is, and always will be, terrorism to those in power.
The long-term impact of the Khmer Rouge and what the US did to the Cambodian people in their desperate hour of need remains relevant today and serves as a stark reminder of how violence and oppression rises again when we’re not paying attention.
Every time we turn our heads in the other direction, we make it easier for history to repeat itself.