Ghosts and Bones

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There a few places that really make you question the nature of human beings, that really make you question whether human beings are any different from any other species of animal; I think that some times, this feeling can be good. When I am in the middle of the desert or the mountains or standing on a deserted beach, I feel really insignificant and like I'm only a tiny part of the history of the world; I feel animal in that way. But seeing the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge and the torture devices of S-21 really make me question human nature. It was so hard for me to grasp that the bones in the monument had been actual people, that less than thirty years ago they had been walking and breathing. I actually don't think I ever really grasped it. Our trip started off, with no sleep, being catapulted from "utopic" Singapore to these ugly, ugly places. It makes me sad that the entire world watched while one third of the Cambodian people- not even children were spared- were tortured and murdered. What makes it even worse is that the UN recognized the Khmer Rouge as a legitimate regime until the early 1990s. I don't understand.

I just found a quote yesterday that fits really well with my feelings in Camobida. It is from "Requiem", a poem by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova after the Bolshevik revolution.

Everything has become muddled forever-
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.

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Comments

[Michele]

te amo
paco, i love all the photographs you take. and i miss you