It’s been fairly quiet since my last post. I went home for just over a week and did some work with a client and saw Janet, Jeff and Dwain. It was good to be in Houston for even a short period of time but I was also ready to get back. Clearly, I’ve made the switch and both places feel equally like home. Each now own a different place in my heart for different reasons. It was a bit strange to know that this would be my last trip back to Houston before repatriating at the end of April, 2014.
Last week I went down to Sihanoukville, a coastal port city, for a youth conference with one of my Ph.D. students. He’s a really bright and talented guy who is the Dean of the Undergraduate School of Business and Economics. We’ve spent some time together but this was truly special. He opened up a lot and shared many of the stories of his life. I treasure those glimpses when people really allow you to see their soul. I think it take a lot more time to build the kind of trust here that allows people to do that.
Ratha (not to be confused with my assistant who is also named Ratha), was nine years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power. He is now 48 with two teenage children. He and his family were forced from their home down near Sihanoukville to a labor camp up in the northeast part of the country. He told me all of the things they did to survive. He was very cleaver as a young boy. He would watch how other people set traps for animals and fish including snakes, spiders, lizards, or basically anything. He'd sneak around at night and steal from the traps to find food for himself and his family. He’d watch the guards at night until he knew they were asleep and then he’d go out to the fields and break open watermelon or anything else he could find growing. He knew that if they ever caught him, they would kill him. So far, there is nothing too extraordinary about his story. It sounds a lot like the many survivor stories that I’ve heard/read since coming here.
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