Trailing

It's my one-week anniversary! Every day has seemed like an eternity, and yet this week has flown by when I look back on it.

Being a "trailing spouse" (or fiancé, to modify the term I learned in Egypt), I have long open days to fill while my partner is off at work. Every day I give myself a mission. So far I've been searching and applying for jobs, hunting for hiking shoes for my round-Cambodia trip next week, meeting a few other expats in town, applying for a new passport, and browsing for an apartment. Amazingly, the easiest task by far has been finding an apartment.

Last weekend Mathieu took me to see the apartment he had already booked for us, but unfortunately our reservation was messed up and we had to backtrack to the hotel. Having excitedly anticipated settling into a home, I was struck with frustration at Mathieu's colleague who'd made the mistake. That feeling quickly died when I found out that he was a sweet guy with no family, who had self-educated himself on lonely nights as a child because his mother had fled to France with her oldest children (not him) during the bloody civil war, and his father was taken outside and shot, as was the fate of many educated people then in Phnom Penh. The person who told me all this said, "Everybody here in their 40s or so has a story like that."

It's a recent history that is hard to imagine, and even harder to swallow. Even more maddening is that the war criminals are still on trial. Just the other night the former Khmer Rouge Minister of Foreign Affairs died. Ieng Sary had the privilege of living until the age of 87, when in just four years (1975-1979) he oversaw a genocide that slaughtered 1.7 million people. As the criminals die off and the justice system crawls along, the Prime Minister Hun Sen (a former member of Khmer Rouge - someone please explain that one to me) continues to obstruct justice and protect the old regime.

Sobered, I took on our change of plans with new perspective. I found a new place and we're scheduled to move in at the end of the month. 

It feels ridiculous to write about anything else after reflecting upon injustice and genocide, so I will just leave you to meditate on this irresistible pitch: