RHAC Service Trip 2017: DAY 2: SOBERING & REFLECTIVE

It has been a day that awakened the senses and confronted the differences in human morality.

- Bus ride to Tabitha Foundation -

It all started with our trip to Tabitha Foundation for an orientation to prepare us for the house building tomorrow. Janne, the senior director of Tabitha in Phnom Penh, shared with us some of Cambodia’s brutal history, drawing particular attention to the Khmer Rouge, and how that has shaped the country. We will need to follow a number of rules to avoid creating offences when building homes. One such rule is that under no circumstance do you pick up a child under two or communicate interest in that child as it will be perceived as payment for building the house.

The significance of our work, and more so that of Tabitha’s, is to restore the dignity and self-worth of people, one family at a time in order to transform whole communities.
This has extended into selling silk products, which the students enjoyed purchasing for family and friends.

Tuol Sleng (S-21) Genocide Museum was an eerie place of unspeakable torture and shameless atrocities. 12,000 – 20,000 imprisoned and only 12 confirmed survivors. The explicit nature of this experience left the students shocked, humbled and saddened. Students heard the stories of Tuol Sleng through an audio tour at their own pace. Only five people were ever arrested for these crimes.

The Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre [The Killing Fields] allowed students to hear about the cruel and unspeakable history shaped by the violence of the Khmer Rouge. The mass graves had bones and clothing still coming through the dirt. The Memorial Stupa is a tall structure housing more than 9000 skulls. No bullet was ever fired. Every death to ‘purify’ the country of the educated was bloody and graphic.

- The "Killing Tree". The place
where babies were killed -

This genocide saw three million tortured and killed. The killing field we visited was just one of over three hundred in the country. The Khmer people do not feel like justice has been served and many are suffering the on going consequences down the generations.

- Lunch at "Restore Cafe" -

The afternoon came with a Mekong River Cruise, amidst torrential rain. Students saw a river community living on houseboats. Whilst we traveled students picked from a mystery box, items such as Beetlenut, Tobacco, Dried fish, Tea bark, as well as incense, and were given the opportunity to taste some of these delicacies...do not worry, they didn't try the Tobacco.