Today is about seeing old Cambodian friends with whom the law school has worked over the years -- the Dean of a law school in Phnom Penh, Youk Chang at the Cambodian Genocide Project (where the students do a moot court exercise at the end of their class, representing the various sides in the tribunal), a visit to the Center for Community Legal Education which we formed in 1997 and is now entirely Khmer-run and self sustaining, and tonight a dinner with a group of the lawyers that we brought to the law school in the mid-nineties as part of our very first project in Cambodia.
It is hard to imagine more different realities than ours and these folks, but connections and feelings remain so intense. What almost all of them have been through is incredible, some surviving the forced march from Phnom Penh in April 1975 and almost all having lost members of their families to the Khmer Rouge terror.
Yesterday and thoughts of the trip continue to rattle around in my head:
- A different Phnom Penh?: There is no question that in the fifteen years since I first came here the city has changed. You notice it when you fly in: the density of the city is striking and the airport an entirely different affair than the small one building structure that was here in the early 90s. Now massive new ministry buildings and even a high rise (20 stories?) are part of the hodge podge architecture that is taking its toll on the once French colonial feel of yellowed low slung buildings. The cyclo pedaled by thin-legged and very strong Cambodian men has given way to a tuk-tuk-type contraption drawn by a motorcyle (moto) -- a definite improvement. Traffic lights now are omnipresent, even with clocks to countdown the seconds to signal the change in lights. In 1994, there was not a traffic light in the city. Bars and neon have replaced many of the buildings, particulalry along the river. The old Le Royal hotel with its circular driveway and easy chairs where drinks were once served long into the night has given way to a beautiful Raffles hotel that has restored the impressive structure. But in many ways nothing has changed: the traffic is as chaotic as ever, a slow moving ballet of sorts with drivers weaving in an out to prove the theorem that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and motos carrying construction materials, whole families, chickens, and fruits. In the end, this remains a city struggling to find its identity following the Vietnam war, following the evacuation of the city in the time of Pol Pot, following the Vietnamese occupation, following the UN occupation during the time of the transitional government, following...you get the point.
- A night cap with the students: There is a wonderful bar in this town, the Foreign Correspondent's Club (the FCC) frequented by the ex pat community, many of whom probably spend too much time there. It is an open air building that overlooks the waters of the Ton Le Sap which flows upstream for part of the year (a story in itself.) You enter the bar from the street where a snarl of motos and tuk tuks wait for passengers. The building is a one of those old French colonial ones that now seem to be fading from the landscape. One walks up a wood banistered stair case to the second floor where a bar dominates the middle of the room and tables line the open-air views on to the river. Fans swirl and geckos crawl around the walls and ceilings as folks play pool, sit in easy chairs, view local art on the walls, or just sip drinks looking out over the river. It has that kind of Casablanca feel. When you get to the top of the stair you expect someone to greet you and tell you that Bogie and Bacall are in the corner and want to know why you're late. Needless to say, the students found this joint the first day they were here. So did I last night with them.
To be continued.
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