One
afternoon in late December 1977, the luscious open
fields about half of a mile from a Khmer Rouge camp
were filled with children and their
water-buffaloes. Children gathered themselves under
trees in a wooded area for protection from tropical
heat and played games in small groups. The
buffaloes walked lazily and enjoyed the luscious
grass. My water buffaloes were on the far side of
this open field and led other buffaloes away from
the herd. My two brothers walked toward the
buffaloes to stop them from straying. A few minutes
later, I followed. We were about a quarter of a
mile away from the wooded area in an wide open
field. My brothers, about 50 meters in front of me,
pointed toward the eastern sky. In the midst of the
deep blue cloudless sky, four World War II T-28
planes were on a dive, not at the nearby camp but at
me and my brothers in the open field. We were
stunned and stood there motionlessly watching the
dive. We were helpless; there was no cover. I think
the pilots thought the black buffaloes were the
Khmer Rouge soldiers because the soldiers dress in
black uniforms. While the planes were diving toward
us, we heard and saw the explosions of the
anti-aircraft shells in the air. At the bottom of
the bomb dive, we could see the pilots in the planes
and the writing on the bombs. We fell to the ground
and placed our hands over our ears because of the
loud noise of the plane engines and the explosion of
the anti-aircraft shells. I was terrified. I
thought that was it for me. I still can picture
those bombs under those wings. But thank God, the
anti-aircraft shells were fired so rapidly that the
planes had to fly away.
January 1978, the Khmer Rouge soldiers had receded
and camped in my village. The villagers had to move
to a different village away from the battle fields.
My grandfather had permission to stay in the village
to tend to his tobacco crop. One afternoon, the
soldiers who used our house as their camp offered my
grandfather a bowl of soup. The bowl was so full
that my grandfather had to drain some of the broth
out. My grandfather was arrested for draining the
broth and was tied up-side-down hanging off a tree
on his own property.
The
next day, the villagers came back to the village
because the Vietnamese had pulled back. My siblings
and I went to the fields to tend our buffaloes. In
the late afternoon, my two brothers and I came back
from the fields. There was a gathering of people in
our house. My mother and my father's three sisters
were wailing. My father's mother was caring for my
crying sister and four year old brother. My 84 year
old great-grandmother was lost in thought.
My
mother walked up to us and said "They will take us
tonight."
In
that moment, my strength left me; my brother Lundi
jumped off his buffalo and screamed "No, I don't
want to die" and ran away.
My
aunts held us and we cried. My mother encouraged us
to eat so that we had strength to walk for that
night. The sun was setting and Lundi was still in
hiding. My brother Sina and I went to look for
Lundi. We found him crying himself to sleep in an
old storage hut. We took him home.
It was
dark. There were about forty family members who
came to say goodbye. We awaited death with fear and
trembling. The men came for us. With them was my
grandfather. His arms were tied behind his back.
"I
don't want to go; I want to live," Lundi ran to my
great-grandmother and cried.
Her
eyes, filled with sorrow, stared straight ahead into
the darkness of the night, and she softly ran her
fingers through his hair. Her heart was broken and
she passed away later that night.
