I can all too well remember the morning of 9/11, waking to the horrors unfolding on the television that sunny tuesday afternoon. There's nothing that can prepare you for such a tragedy and they come at the most unexpected of times. Seeing a nation cope with loss and sadness is something we all have witnessed time and time again. Unfortunately our generation is used to tragic events in the news and how we as a nation have responded to these times of sorrow never fails to bring out emotions in me and others that don't normally arise during day to day life. After 9/11 our nation was frozen with fear and sadness, but united in determination and patriotism. People came together to mourn for the dead as we typically do in the states, had candlelight vigils after candlelight vigils, and sang patriotic songs. We reflect on the events that transpired and the lives of those that were lost until there are no more tears to cry. Coming to Cambodia the thought never crossed my mind that I would see something like this unfold in the Khmer people. Last night, a tragedy struck the country of Cambodia and I have had the opportunity to see a culture so foreign to mine react just as we do in America, with their own unique twists thrown in here and there.
Last night at around 10pm there was a concert letting out across the river in phnom penh due to the end of the 3 day Khmer Water Festival. Its a time where people celebrate the end of the monsoon season and the mood in Cambodia is one of delight and happiness. As people were enjoying the festive mood they started traveling in hords across this narrow bridge when the opposing hord of people going across in the opposite direction met in the center and caused a mass of people with nowhere to go. Those in the center fainted causing a panic which was further escalated by the bridge apparently swaying and police using measures to force people to move. The crowd went crazy and people started stampeding in an effort to clear the bridge. With nowhere to go they climbed over others, trampling those under their feet to death, jumped in the river even though most in this country do not know how to swim, and grabbed electrical wiring strung all over the bridge which led to many being electrocuted to death. A wall of people formed anywhere from 5-7 feet high, laying on top of each other more tightly packed than a can of sardines. The images are absolutely horrible and in the end 376 people lost their lives, injuring many many more.
The thing about Cambodia is that most families have someone living in the city. The country itself is no bigger than the state of South Dakota so it is relatively small in size. Most have sons or daughters that study in the city and/or brothers or sisters who went to the city for a better life. So when something like this happens, everyone in the country feels affected and saddened by such a tragic event. My family knew around 2am last night, with many other pcv's telling me the same. By morning the whole country knew of this horrible loss of life and Cambodia stopped for a day as it did in America that tuesday morning in 2001. My health center canceled work to my dismay, and people crowded around their television sets. I managed to find a food stall with a group of people sitting in front of a television watching the news and the images displayed were unbelievable. There's no censorship here so they felt it was appropriate to show rooms and rooms of dead people sprawled out on the floor. These people who were enjoying a concert not 5 minutes before being trampled to death or electrocuted were laying there in their phnom penh style clothes motionless with grieving family members crying hysterically over them. I could only stand so much of that sadness that I left after a while, but the images are very haunting and continue to plague my mind.
The rest of the day was devoted to talking about what had transpired. Me and my family would discuss how lucky we are my brother was not there, how many people died, where they came from, ect... The day was eery; people gave off this impression that something bad has just happened and there was a certain subdued nature in the way Cambodians ran life in the village today. At night, people created buddhist shrines in front of there houses and as the sun set, each hut had a shrine devoted to the dead of the night before. At around 7pm everyone came outside to beat on drums for about 25 minutes and from what I gather it was to scare away the ghosts that would surely be roaming the streets. Neighbors gathered to discuss the tragedy, conversing around their shrines. I stood on my porch watching the candle lights flicker through the palm trees, absorbing the quietness this night in particular presented.
As they do in America, people in Cambodia mourn for the dead by coming together and uniting as one. Families, Neighbors, and entire communities are brought together by the unimaginable. People gather around televisions to watch over and over replays of something they wish would have never happened in the first place. Vigils are dedicated to the lives lost and people find solace in their offerings. As interesting as it is to see a nation cope with a tragic loss, I cannot help but feel sad as I would anything other time that many families are having to deal with the unimaginable loss of a loved one over such a senseless event. No matter where you are in the world, tragedies happen and the people who are affected react in a way that is unique not to their culture or country of residence, but to their origins as human beings that have undergone a tragic event.
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