Adjusting and readjusting

Life is becoming normal. I am continuing with interviews, checking out new schools and looking around for apartments. I have been exploring the city a little more by foot, which is good for my mental map of Phnom Penh. I have also been spending a lot more time with my new Khmer friends, which has been excellent. Two nights ago I went out dancing with a big group and it was really fun and motivating for me to practice my Khmer. The DJ was crazy, everything had this club beat and there were lasers and strobe lights to boot.

Yesterday was a much more sobering day, as I visited the S-21 museum, which stands for Security 21. It used to be a school, but in the late 1970's the Khmer Rouge combatants took it over and used it as a place of torture and prison. They hadn't really done much to the place to change it to the museum/memorial that it is now, and there were blood stains on the floor and the buckets and containers that the prisoners used for their waste still in the cells. There were a lot of photos of the prisoners and that was really heavy for me to see their faces--some bruised and battered, some full of hatred, and some that were smiling. There were also photos of the Khmer Rouge members and this was even more heart-wrenching as some of the boys were about 12 years old. I hired a tour guide, and this woman was telling me how she lost her brother, sister, and father during Pot Pol's reign of terror, and she just managed to survive and escape to Vietnam with her mother, both of them half-starved. The city of Phnom Penh, usually bustling and full of 1million residents became a ghost town as everyone was shipped out to different prison locations. It seems that everyone has lost someone from the Khmer Rouge--and only now is just one of the leaders on trial. Apparently there are a lot of ex-Khmer Rouge that are still holding office in the government...terrifying. It is such a tragic and recent history and it was important for me to see and learn, but it was a pretty dark day.