Global Reflections

On Saturday, we checked one item off our Cambodia bucket list—we visited Phnom Tamao Zoological Park and Wildlife Rescue Centre. Phnom Tamao is advertised in Phnom Penh as a zoo, but it’s much more than that—it’s one of the best wildlife rescue centers in Southeast Asia, where the goal is to treat the animals’ medical needs and release them back into the wild, not to display them to the public. The animal handlers that I saw wore Wildlife Alliance t-shirts, so I assume there’s a relationship between Phnom Tamao and Wildlife Alliance, though I’m not certain exactly that that relationship is.

Rather than going on our own, which would have been entirely possible, we arranged to join a tour run by Betelnut Jeep Tours. Their website promises exclusive access to the animals and to not-open-to-the-general-public areas, as well as transportation and lunch. Overall, we were happy with their services and with our experience at Phnom Tamao, but I was disappointed that some aspects of the tour didn’t quite match up with the website’s promises or with the experiences that I know others have had with them—we weren’t able to go into the tiger house, nor did we have any up-close interactions with the animals that weren’t available to everyone (except for going “backstage” between the otters and the leopards, which did get us significantly closer to the leopard than we would have been out on the main path—but I’m not sure that counts as an “encounter” since it would be foolhardy at best to pet a leopard); of less importance, there was no traditional Khmer wine or betelnut chewing lesson after lunch. (To be fair, I was dehydrated enough that I would have turned down the wine, and I’d already decided to watch but not participate in the betelnut chewing. I mostly was interested in the photographic opportunities of the betelnut lesson.) Despite my awareness that parts of the experience were not as advertised, however, it was a good day, and I do believe that it’s worthwhile to visit Phnom Tamao for the first time with Betelnut. Subsequent trips, if you’re in the area long enough to have them, would be equally enjoyable on your own, once you’ve had the guided tour once.

Our day started out at the Lazy Gecko Café & Guesthouse, which I believe is run by the same couple that does Betelnut Tours. We confirmed with Aram, the owner-operator and our tour guide, that we’d be able to interact with the elephants that day (we’d rescheduled twice due to elephant unavailability), paid our fees ($33/adult, with a discounted price for Alexa), and settled in alongside the 9 or so other tourists to wait for the Jeep to arrive. We were all hatted and sunscreened, expecting a full day in the sun, with transportation by open-top Jeep, so I was pleasantly surprised when Aram offered Alexa and me the covered passenger seat by the driver. We all settled in and enjoyed the just-over-an-hour drive, especially once Alexa settled down for an early nap.

Once at Phnom Tamao, our first stop was a huge enclosure in which a herd of Sambar deer roamed freely. The deer came right up to us, accepted food from our hands, enjoyed some petting, and even head butted a few of us for neglecting the wrong deer. Fortunately, close attention is paid to the deer’s behavior, and the ones that are a little more assertive have had their horns cut. The ones that are aggressive are in separate enclosures within the larger one.

 

Several other animals also are in smaller enclosures within the large Sambar deer one. We saw Siamese crocodiles, rox turtles, yellow tailed squirrels—according to our guide, the only two in captivity—and a couple of storks who were recovering from broken wings. We also met a few macaques—several wild ones that had wandered into the enclosure on their own, and one male gibbon who has to be kept in a separate, small enclosure because his cataracts have caused him to lose his sight almost completely. The blind gibbon had been raised as a pet, loves human attention, and never will be released into the wild. A charitable organization is trying to raise money for surgery on his eyes so that he can regain his sight and be placed in a larger enclosure, possibly even with a mate.

 

After leaving the Sambar deer enclosure, we walked past several other enclosures of varying sizes—a relatively small one with a few more Siamese crocodiles; a huge one with some Sarus cranes, Eld’s deer, and beautiful Green peafowl; and another smaller one with an iguana that was confiscated while being imported illegally into Cambodia. We also saw a silver langur and some Cambodian jungle cats.

 We also met a family of pileated gibbons, which included an adorable infant, the two parents (mated for life), and an older brother. This family lived in their own enclosure, which shared a wall with the enclosure for a widowed pileated gibbon—she never will mate again or be part of a family group, and family groups don’t share territories with other gibbons, but proximity to other gibbons is good for her. This particular widow tends to get a little angry and hold grudges: some tourists once gave her a can of beer, which she proceeded to enjoy until Aram took it away from her—beer is ok for them in small quantities, but a whole can is too much—and she proceeded to shun him for the rest of that visit and for his next one. When I stopped petting her a little too soon, she literally showed me her backside, another behavior that Aram said is typical.

 

After a few more enclosures (myna birds, chickens, and bats), it was time for lunch. We ate on one of several raised platforms under a wood roof. While we had been meeting the animals, Aram’s wife had cooked a delicious Khmer meal for us: rice, loc lac, a noodle dish, sweet and sour vegetables, and a few meat-in-sauce dishes whose names I don’t know. I briefly considered taking a photograph, but we were all pretty hungry, and we just dug in instead. Water was included with the tour, but Jeff and I chose to purchase fresh coconuts (only fifty cents each) and drink the coconut water instead—it’s tastier, it replenishes lost electrolytes, and two coconuts was more than enough for all three of us. Fresh pineapple for dessert rounded out the meal and utterly delighted Alexa.

 

After lunch, it was time to meet Lucky, one of the Asian elephants who live at Phnom Tamao. Lucky came out and did a little show—taking a bow, playing limbo before deciding to just break the post instead, lying down, and playing soccer with his handler—before coming to greet his fans and accept his payment: pets, pictures, and sugarcane. When Alexa got up the courage to try to feed him (she’d been a little iffy about petting or feeding all the animals, as she’s cautious by nature), Lucky didn’t seem to notice the sugarcane she held out toward him. Aram’s wife gave her a mango to try instead, and sure enough, it worked like a charm: Lucky not only took the mango from Lexa, but started accepting sugarcane only to throw it on the ground, holding out for more mango.

After Lucky’s show, we piled into the Jeep to head to a slightly more distant section of the rescue center. There we saw five Burmese pythons huddled together in their enclosure and learned that they each eat one live chicken a week—they only grow as large as their diet allows, and they don’t require much energy at all, so those kept as pets may eat as little as one mouse a month.

 

Then we went into a restricted area beside the enclosure that holds two otters, allowing us a closer look than we’d get from the public area. It’s a testament to Phnom Tamao’s status as a rescue center, not merely a zoo, that the otters have two rather large areas, connected by a small gate. One area has toys and a more “homey” feel—that one is their living habitat. But in the wild, otters do not hunt where they live, so the other habitat is designed to be their hunting habitat, preserving the separation that they prefer.

After we’d finished looking at the otters, we turned around and prepared to follow Aram to the next enclosure. He cautioned us to stay to the otter side of the narrow (maybe one meter across) path, and then I saw why: a leopard was lying on his side of the chain link fence, mere inches from the path, watching us closely—and the fence actually had a little outward arc to it that suggested that the leopard was not content always just to lie there. It’s easy to see how he could have gotten a swipe at us had we not avoided that side of the path. We saw two leopards in that enclosure, though only one came close, and were told that another male was in the building; he and his brother aren’t getting along right now, so they have to take turns being outside.

Then we headed across the street to the binturongs’ enclosure. These animals were the strangest ones we saw, without a doubt. They looked like a cross between a bear and a squirrel, smelled like popcorn, and giggled like little girls. Jeff was fascinated with these creatures; Alexa was trying to decide whether or not they were interesting enough to stay awake and watch; and I was frustrated that the darn things didn’t want to go anywhere that would allow me a good picture—they’re nocturnal and mostly were interested in lying around on platforms high off the ground.

After checking in with a couple of solitary gibbons, we headed over to the tiger area. We saw all three of the tigers who live at Phnom Tamao—the father, the mother, and the now-adult son who was conceived and born at Phnom Tamao when mom’s birth control failed. They try not to breed any tigers at Phnom Tamao, because tigers born into captivity never can be released into the wild.

We walked by the elephants’ enclosures but weren’t able to get close to them. Aram told us the histories of the animals there, including the one who lost his leg to a snare. He now has a prosthetic leg, which is replaced as necessary as he grows. Apparently he’s ok with his keepers now, but for a while after receiving his prosthesis, he would cower in a corner when they came near for fear they would take it away from him (they had to take it off periodically to check his stump, or for maintenance, or to fit a new one).

Our last stop of the day was the area reserved for bears. This area is a project of Free the Bears and currently houses around 220 bears. Many of the bears were rescued from restaurants that illegally serve dishes such as bear paw soup—cutting the paw off the live bear in front of the customer to ensure its freshness. Others were rescued from traps, from smugglers, or from owners who mistreated them.

 

After the bears—and a few lions who wouldn’t come near enough the edge of their enclosure for me to get a decent picture—it was time to pack it up and go back to Phnom Penh. Since there wasn’t room for everyone in the Jeep (as we traveled around Phnom Tamao, a few were hanging off the sides, which was neither practical nor safe for the trip back to Phnom Penh), our family and another couple rode with Aram’s wife in her comfortably air conditioned car. Alexa quickly fell asleep, Jeff dozed a bit, and I just relaxed, content to be sitting down and cool after a good but hot and tiring day at “the zoo.”

On Monday, Jeff and I took advantage of the holiday and spent a couple of hours visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was a nice day, a little warm but not too hot, with a brightly shining sun, perfect for the short walk from our BKK neighborhood to Tuol Sleng, located on Street 113 near Street 360. All the information I’d found on the internet indicated that Tuol Sleng was right on the corner, impossible to miss; although it was impossible to miss, thanks to the huge sign on the corner, Tuol Sleng itself was a block north of Street 360. We paid our $2 entry fee (each) and splurged on the $3 brochure, but said a polite “Qat tee, akuun” to the tour guides offering their services, then entered the former prison.

 

 

At first glance, Tuol Sleng appeared unremarkable, much like the many high schools scattered around the city. Not too surprising, as it originally was Tuol Svay Prey high school. It was converted into the secret torture prison S-21 (Security Office-21) shortly after Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. One of the signs now present at Tuol Sleng explains that Pol Pot and his regime shunned education and viewed it as a corrupting influence, so I guess for him, it was poetic justice to transform a school into a prison for “traitors.” I assume that the moniker Tuol Sleng, meaning “Hill of the Poisonous Trees,” was attached sometime after the prison was discovered by liberating Vietnamese forces in 1979.

We entered the facility at the corner of a large courtyard. This courtyard is now a gravesite: It holds the tombs of the last 14 victims of the prison, those whose mangled bodies were found by the Vietnamese liberators. The courtyard also displays a sign with a list of rules the prisoners were forced to obey, including prohibitions on talking or any noise whatsoever, even during beatings; on contradicting the guards in any way; and on taking any time at all to think before answering a question.

To the left of the courtyard is Building A, where high ranking Khmer Rouge were held and tortured. This building now displays grisly photographs of the remains of the last 14 victims, as well as a few beds and other objects that were used in its days as S-21.

Building B, located behind the courtyard, was used for the mass detention of prisoners. Now, it’s filled with room after room of photographs. The administrators at S-21 apparently were diligent record-keepers: Each prisoner, upon entry to the prison, was seated in a chair and photographed. Detailed information was obtained about the victims’ lives, starting in childhood, and later, information from the “confessions” was added. At some point, the photographs were separated from the information files, so even though the pictures were recovered, most of them have not been identified. Building B displays a massive amount of those photographs. What is striking about the pictures is the diversity: Although almost all are Cambodian, they range in age from a baby in his mother’s arms to old people; males and females are included; and the prisoners could be anyone from a farmer accused of stealing food to a Khmer Rouge officer accused of being a secret agent for the CIA … or it could just as easily be a farmer accused of working for the CIA—the regime didn’t seem too particular about whether or not the accusations made sense, just that they had been made. Guilt by association also was assumed; if a father or mother was accused, both parents and all the children were arrested, and quite possibly the extended family and friends as well. Although I was disturbed by the sheer number of photographs, I was most disturbed by the pictures of children, sitting bravely in the chair, unaware (I hope) of the horrors they would soon endure.

In the middle of the facility, to the right of the courtyard, is the administration building. We did not enter that building, as it continues to be used mostly for administrative purposes—though two of the survivors of S-21 now spend their days around that building, speaking to tourists and selling their autobiographies. On the other side of the administration building is a second courtyard, with Building C behind it and Building D to its right.

Building C is the one that, on the face of it, appears most disturbing. Barbed wire covers the verandas, to prevent prisoners from committing suicide by jumping. The classrooms in the bottom two floors were converted into tiny individual cells, constructed of brick on the ground floor and of wood on the first floor (second floor, for Americans). Narrow holes were blasted into the walls of the classrooms to make a single long walkway from one end of the building to the other. The second floor (or third, to Americans) was left as larger rooms for mass detention; prisoners were forced to lie on the floor, head to foot, utterly silent.

 Building D contains more photographs, as well as displays of some of the original equipment. The chair on which victims sat for their photographs is displayed there, as are several instruments of torture and a couple of artists’ renditions of life in S-21: a painting of a mass detention room and another of a man in a brick cell. One room on the ground floor houses a memorial stupa, where bones of the victims are displayed and people can leave offerings of food, drink, and incense. The first floor contains a Peace Exhibit, which is a cooperative effort of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Okinawa Prefecture Peace Memorial Museum. I wandered through the exhibit but did not look closely at most of it, as I was too wrapped up in my thoughts of genocide at S-21 to want to read much about Okinawa, and I feared that if I did read it, I would find the inexcusable equating of the genocide perpetrated by the Pol Pot regime and the American military administration of Okinawa during and after World War II. Jeff, who did look more closely at the exhibit, told me that my instincts to avoid it were right; it did indeed draw inaccurate and offensive parallels. [Edited to add comments from Jeff: The focus of the Okinawa portion of the exhibit was the unfortunate civilian casualties that happened during the battle for Okinawa between the U.S. and Japanese forces. To my mind, comparing the collateral damage done to a third party during a battle to the tortures and murder inflicted by a regime upon its own people invites a moral relativism that I find repugnant. As a technical collaboration to share/learn artifact/evidence preparation and preservation, I think it's great, but the display presented left me feeling like there was a comparison being made that was unwarranted and unfair to the victims of Tuol Sleng as well as to the American forces (probably the Japanese too, but their record of wartime atrocities makes me less sure) at Okinawa. I found it somewhat akin to comparing a police officer who accidentally shoots a hostage to one who abducts, tortures, and then murders their neighbor. The end result is the same, but the level of evil is dramatically different.]

Building D also is the location where an hour-long film about S-21 can be viewed twice a day. Because it was almost time for our housekeeper to get off work, and we had left Alexa in her care, we chose to skip the film and instead head home.

I am glad that I visited Tuol Sleng, though it is a difficult place to visit. I cannot say that I enjoyed my time there, and despite my interest in the film, I’m almost certain that I will not return to view it. At the same time, however, it feels somehow necessary to me to visit once, to pay homage to those who suffered and died there, or who suffered there before being sent to Cheoung Ek to die. It’s as if a part of me wants to ignore places like Tuol Sleng and Cheoung Ek, to retreat from the horror of what people can do to other people—but another, larger part of me realizes that if we don’t acknowledge and remember the evil that has been perpetrated in the past, we leave ourselves vulnerable to forgetting that it’s possible, failing to defend against it, and repeating history. So as difficult as it may be to go, as tempting as it is to look at Cambodia’s ancient history rather than its more recent history, I do recommend that visitors to Cambodia visit Tuol Sleng and Cheoung Ek, every bit as much as I recommend that they visit Angkor Wat and the Royal Palace. I believe that we owe it to the victims, to ourselves, and to our children to remember that against which we must guard.

Monkeys at Phnom Sampeau

Our Adventure Jeep

The Killing Cave*

Buddhist prayer flags outside the killing cave

The Golden Stupa**

One of the many monkeys that posed for us

Bats exiting the bat cave

Bats--lots of bats

Another monkey ... just because he's cute

*The picture of the killing cave shows only that part that is visible from the top of the stairs. The shaft down which people were thrown is off to the left, and the Buddha and memorial stupa are off to the right.

**I was unable to get a picture of the stupa without any embassy-affiliated personnel in the picture, so I went with the best picture I had and obscured the face of the person posing on the steps.


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Battambang series:

1: Battambang Resort

2: Phare Ponleu Selpak

3: A Morning in Battambang
4: Caves, Mountains, and Monkeys: An Afternoon in Battambang

We only had one full day in Battambang, so it was a busy one! We spent the day on a tuk tuk tour of the sights around Battambang. Our schedule involved two tour sessions—one in the morning, the other in the late afternoon/early evening, with a break at the hotel for lunch in between. Here’s a whirlwind account of our whirlwind morning.

Our first stop was a traditional Cambodian house. The current owner, the granddaughter of the original owner, showed us around and explained some of the features of the house and the items inside it. First she showed us the area under the house, where a simple rice sifting machine was set up. The machine consisted of a large basket, through which the rice could fall as it was separated from the husk. The basket was agitated using a two-person handle attached to a long stick. Sifting the rice is a long and tedious project, as the handle is quite heavy to manipulate.

After we’d seen and tried the sifter, we went upstairs to see the inside of the house. It was surprisingly large and airy, with beautifully polished hardwood floors and exposed rafters. The owner showed us a traditional instrument, similar to a guitar, then demonstrated a traditional pastime of Cambodian women—chewing   betel nuts (actually areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves). Older Cambodians often have a basket filled with the specific tools needed to prepare and chew the betel nuts, which are thought to protect the chewer from tooth decay. Unfortunately, modern medicine has revealed a link between betel nut chewing and cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach, so I tend to agree with the younger Cambodians, who mostly have abandoned this practice.

Upon leaving the house, we took a trip on the Bamboo Train, which was created as an inexpensive, relatively fast way for rural Cambodians to travel between villages. The “train” is a simple platform, made of bamboo, that rests on two axles. It’s powered by a moto (or motorcycle) engine and travels along the regular train tracks. The whole contraption can be disassembled quickly and moved off the track to make way for real trains or for bamboo trains that are going the other direction. It reaches speeds of up to around 10 miles per hour, which made for a comfortable breeze on a hot day. 

 

The journey that we took is geared toward tourists—the operation is overseen by the tourist police, and the destination is a small village that seemed to consist exclusively of a brick factory and a couple of huts selling cold drinks and t-shirts. We enjoyed some cold drinks, took a short tour of the brick factory, and then reboarded the train for the trip back to where our tuks tuks awaited us.

The ride itself was nice. Alexa had been tired and fussy all morning due to the late night before, but she fell asleep almost immediately, despite the noise of the engine, and got a pretty good nap in. Jeff and I were able to enjoy the breeze, ignore the jolts and bumps, and see a little of the countryside—not too much of it, because of the overgrown trees and grasses along the tracks, but some. It was a unique way to travel, one that I’m glad I experienced, and I found myself impressed with the ingenuity of those who first thought to create this system.

After our ride on the Bamboo Train, we stopped by another house whose occupants earn a living by making and sglling rice paper. We didn’t spend much time there, but we watched as one woman created the sheets from a boiling rice mixture and another set them out to cool and dry. They worked in the shade under the house, but it still was a hot and tedious process. The first woman used a small bowl to dip the rice liquid out of the pot, pour it onto a plate, and then spread it into a consistent circle. She let it cool for just a moment while she prepared the next circle, then used a spatula to transfer the thin, wet “paper” onto a wooden rod mounted on a turnstile. The second woman then removed the rod and used it to roll the rice paper onto a wooden screen before replacing the now-empty rod for reuse. When the screen was full, it was propped up against a tree or post so that the rice paper could cool.

 Finally, we visited our last site of the morning—Wat Ek Phnom. This wat was constructed in the 11^th century and is in a state of ruin. After seeing Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, it wasn’t particularly impressive, but it was worth a visit since we were in the area. The ruins are at the back of the complex, and a newer pagoda is in front of them. The most impressive part of the site, however, is the giant Buddha statue located next to the new pagoda. The statue towered over the trees and dwarfed the bigger-than-life-size statues of monks that flank it.

After a morning of sightseeing, we were ready to get back to the resort for lunch. Our afternoon tours needed to wait until close to sunset, so we had a couple of hours in which to eat, relax by the pool, or take a nap. Then we were off again—but I’ll save that for the next installment.

* We do not show pictures of ourselves or of anyone who is affiliated with us or with the embassy on this blog due to security concerns. Because the child in this image is the daughter of an embassy employee, I obscured her face.

Battambang series:

1: Battambang Resort

2: Phare Ponleu Selpak

3: A Morning in Battambang
4: Caves, Mountains, and Monkeys: An Afternoon in Battambang

The evening of our arrival in Battambang, we had plans to go see the circus. I hadn’t been to a circus since I was a small child, and my memories of it involved the stereotypical big tent, three rings, animals, clowns, jugglers, and maybe a few tumblers thrown in just for fun. I had an idea that this circus would be different when Jeff pointed out that some of its former members now are part of Cirque du Soleil. My thoughts: “Oh, this is going to be more of an acrobatic circus. Cool!”

The show did involve amazing acrobatic feats, and they indeed were very cool, but it turns out that this circus is even more than that. This circus was Phare PonleuSelpak.

Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO; often called simply “a charity”) that was started in 1986 in a refugee camp near the Cambodia-Thai border. From the website: “The idea of a creative association, which would use art and expression to help young refugees overcome the trauma of war, emerged from drawing workshops held for children in the camps. This original idea continued after the refugees returned to their homeland, and PPS was formally founded in 1994 by a group of former Site 2 [Refugee Camp] children.” Phare Ponleu Selpak is centered in Battambang and currently serves over 1,000 children in various ways. Some attend a public school that is sponsored by the organization; others receive free medical care and meals; and many have access to a library and leisure center. But those are not the things for which PPS is most widely known.

PPS is known as a training center for artists, musicians, actors, and circus performers. During our time on the PPS campus, we experienced the results of training in all of these areas.

Upon our arrival, we first were ushered into a building in which original artwork was displayed. The work consisted of pencil drawings as well as paintings, using a variety of mediums and styles. I so wanted to take pictures of the art, but that just felt wrong—the work was for sale, and it would have been too much like stealing to create a digital copy rather than purchase the original—so I took pictures* only of two huge sculptures that were displayed in the rafters. These sculptures obviously paid homage to the circus school, which attracts so many paying visitors to the campus. A friend purchased small paintings of Buddha faces carved into stone, as well as a set of paintings of Ta Prohm. I came close to buying a painting (or two) of traditional, raised Cambodian houses, and I also gravitated toward one of the Ta Prohm paintings, but I realized that we purchased so much papyrus in Egypt, and we’ve already purchased or planned to purchase several other pieces of wall art here, that we simply won’t have wall space for much more. So I resisted the urge … I’m still not certain that was the right decision!

After we browsed in the art gallery for a while, it was time to go to the circus pavilion. This area was a relatively small, open-aired structure: a flat paved stage, with curtains hiding the backstage areas behind it, a small musicians’ area beside it, and bleachers in front of it, all covered by a roof supported by poles, on which hung the necessary spotlights. Not a particularly impressive setting for what turned out to be a very impressive show. 

Even after learning that the circus is more acrobatic than animal, my expectations turned out to be too low. I expected spectacular feats, to be sure, but I expected acrobatics, and that was it—maybe I’m just revealing that I’ve never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, but it didn’t occur to me that there was more to it than acrobatics. This was so much more than acrobatics. This was drama, set to music, accompanied by the creation of original paintings, and telling the stories both of one woman and of a nation.

The show started with an old woman hobbling out onto the stage. She was bundled up against the incessant chill that her old bones probably felt on the warmest of days, wearing glasses, and carrying a book that she obviously treated with great love and respect. As she sat down to read, however, she fell asleep … and the story began.

Several young men ran onto the stage, and with loving tenderness, they began to rewind the clock. Away went the book. Off came the glasses, then the scarf. With each article that she no longer needed, the woman straightened, became more energetic … became younger, until at last there was a young girl sitting there. The girl hopped off the stool and started playing with her friends, at least until the teacher came in and forced them back to work.

Meanwhile, off to the side, an artist unobtrusively painted a serene Buddhist monk, in his bright saffron robes, on a previously blank canvas.

The  show continued with snippets of the girl’s life. We watched her grow into a young woman, start dating, have children, become a teacher—each phase marked by exuberant, awe-inspiring feats of balance and agility by both the girl and those around her. Along the way, we saw a night when she was tormented by demons—a night when she almost died, and the serene monk was covered over with black and spattered with red. A night when her country was ransacked and her life was endangered by the Khmer Rouge.

We also saw the dawn, when the young woman rose from her bed, triumphant merely because she still breathed. On canvas, we saw a tranquil farm on a dirt road—and we saw a city rise in the background, the brown dirt road transform into the black of asphalt, and street lights appear. We saw peace and hope return to the country, and to her life.

Eventually, we saw the young woman grow old. We saw her grow bent and frail. And we saw the tenderness with which her sons treated her as she released her cares and her frailties and passed on from this life.

We saw this woman’s life story. We laughed at her childhood antics, we feared for her life, we rejoiced with her when she fell in love. We shared her pride as she watched her children (or maybe her students) grow and develop and fulfill their potential. We felt a quiet sadness at her passing, and yet recognized her satisfaction at a life well lived.

All of this without a word.

That was Phare Ponleu Selpak.

*None of my pictures turned out very well. Even in the art gallery, which was well lighted, the rafters were a bit dark. And during the performance itself, of course it was dark, and flash photography was not allowed because it could distract the performers. The combination of low light and quick motion meant that these photos by far are not the best pictures I’ve ever taken.


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