Poaura's story

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In the evening of the same day of our wonderfully blissful floatng village experience in Kompong Chhnang (btw, i think the boat is not called 'long-tail' - may be 'long boat'?), we met Poaura (pronounced 'Pura') who works at the hotel. A warm, friendly and with a jolly sense of humour, we got chatting when he served us tea. Thru his broken English (better than our mastery of Khmer language ofcourse) we learned that he's 45yrs old (looks much younger!), he's a 'secondary nurse in the leprosy unit at a local hospital as well as working at the Sokha Hotel. One subject lead to another and we started learning about his experiences during the Khmer Rouge years.
Some details may have been mis-understood due to the language barrier, but in short, he'd been taken by the Khmer Rouge and sent to one of the communes in the country on two occasions (he'd escaped first time, then released when the Vietnamese forces liberated his camp). Like many he lost members of his family and witnessed his two younger brothers die of starvation and exhaustion. His father was a 'commando' fighter fighting the Khmer Rouge, but has since disappeared. He had two scars on his back from stab wounds inflicted on him when he was caught eating a leaf off a tree, he was that hungry. He was one of the "new people" (people from towns and cities), given less food, less rights, etc. The "old people" (from rural backgrounds) were given privileges over the "new people" and even power over them. A classic divide and rule scenario i guess.
After liberation Paoura says he was angry almost beyond control. But he says he prayed hard and overcame his anger as it seemed the only way he could move forwards. Only he sees it as his responsibility to make sure his kids (he has two, both practically grown up) don't forget what can and has happened to a society. Most striking thing about Paoura is that even as he tells us of the horrendous things he's seen and lived through, he's one of the most positive people I've met. I think meeting him was the postscript we needed to our visit to Choeung Ek.

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