The Killing Fields (Cambodia Part III)

Next, in all its poignancy, we went to the Killing Fields. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields The Killing Fields are what Geoff described as, “the Holocaust Museum of Cambodia.” Essentially, this was the site of mass genocide in Cambodia in the late 80’s. It’s a memorial site, which, was set up simply and got straight to the point. One of the most impressionable images that will forever be imprinted in my mind, was the temple, which inside had a tower of skulls from the victims stacked one on top of the other. (See photo.)
After soaking this in, I walked around the fields, where there’s a barbed wire fence separating the visitors from the marshes. At one spot, there’s a little girl who emerges on the other side, with her hands clinging to the fence. She sees you coming and she bats her eyes and smiles and says, “What’s your name? Where you from? I’m so and so. Wanna take a picture of me? Come take a picture.”
I took a picture. I admit, it was hard to resist. This girl looked like she was straight out of a “Save the Children” commercial (see photo). She then reached out her hand and said, “let me see!” I thought, no way, I want to keep my camera beyond today. I showed her from a distance. “Pay me” she says. “You took my picture, now pay me.” I reluctantly gave her 500 riel and she quickly went from being cute to hostile. You should have seen her eyes—the anger—and yet, I snapped two more photos. I am slightly disgusted with myself. It’s like a human life has suddenly become a commodity. It seems that rich Westerners like myself travel to countries like Cambodia and we see poverty, and we take pictures and we feel like we’ve experienced something—we’ve seen poverty first hand—and we take pictures to show others what we’ve seen. I realized, after traveling to the Garbage Dump (more on this later), that I went into that community and shut off all emotion. I drove through there and walked around with the mindset of a journalist in a human interest story. I was taking in all my surroundings—I was observing and making mental notes and asking myself questions (to ask Geoff later) but I wasn’t feeling—at least I wasn’t feeling as much as I should have been for seeing something so tragic. I was an uninvited stranger in someone’s neighborhood—gawking at a world that I couldn’t even pretend to know or understand. I told myself not to take any pictures out of respect for human dignity, but I found myself reaching for my camera anyway. I had never seen anything quite like this place!