Indelible Roots

One of my earliest memories is of walking down this road with my mom, grandparents on my mother’s side, aunts, and uncles. One of them was pulling a little cart and my brother was sitting in the cart. I remember complaining to them about why my brother got to sit in the little cart while I had to walk. I must have been about four then and my brother one.

I’m not sure exactly where we were going or where we came from, but we eventually ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand (Siam) fleeing our own countrymen, the psychopathic Khmer Rouge. Through some miracle of chance we were mostly together and were living next to or near a family that was applying for political asylum. My aunt Lui whom also knew English and French was able to copy the asylum paperwork. Eventually we flew to the United States, to a new life with new possibilities, leaving our countrymen in the refugee camps to their own fates.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always had dreams of being chased. I remember waking up many times with my legs feeling tired and the dream fresh in my mind. Once the chaser actually fell through the floor of a building and died. The dream didn’t recur for months after that, but came back eventually. I don’t recall when those dreams ended, but it was not that long ago. For some reason I never brought it up as I was growing up. Maybe I figured it was normal to have such dreams.

About two or three years ago I decided I needed to go back to Khmer/Cambodia. For several years before that I knew I wanted to go overseas and volunteer somewhere, to give back to the world some of what had been given to me. I thought of places like South America and even the newly formed democracy of Afghanistan. The thought of going to Khmer had not occurred to me, as if the possibility was blocked out of existence. When I finally made that decision it was as if I knew I would go back there some day.

I think I actually tried to drag the process out as long as I could. I went to Phoenix for a year in 2006 where I did expand my occupational therapy skills to an extent working at a hand therapy clinic, though I was never able to get to the county hospital to work on burns. I was also able to exhaust my Montgomery Bill moneys through the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute which may or may not be an asset where I am going.

Returning to Alaska in early 2007 I promised that I would finally go to Khmer within one year or not go at all. It took Cindy to make me promise to even apply for my passport in a certain time frame, before June. After my passport arrived at the end of August, I actually started talking with organizations working in the area. And with the end of salmon fishing season, there were no further excuses to delay. Moving into Ali’s one bedroom igloo two weeks ago was the final push that I needed.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 4:29 pm and is filed under The Start. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.