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The morning we woke up, there was a loud bang on the door, and my entire family woke up. The sound kept going in a pattern until Sakol went to open the door. Standing there was a guy holding a gun, a soldier, looking straight at us until he yelled, “Let's go, and get up!” He pointed the gun at everyone in the family and kept yelling for us to go, until everyone started moving. We only had a few minutes to go ready and everyone was in a rush to change. Everyone was already tired from the long walk the day before and did not have that much energy to be woken up so early in the morning. After getting ready with the clothes I had packed from home, I looked at everyone else and they were already clothed. Looking outside, I saw the sun was still down and has not risen up yet meaning that the time was around 5:00 in the morning. I rubbed my eyes when I noticed outside was more soldiers in the back holding their guns looking at everyone with no emotion. When I got out, they grabbed my wrist tightly and pushed me over to a group of other boys around my age. Although looking through the group of boys they were from the ages of 4-17. Looking back, I saw Ping was brought to a different group of just girls, Lynn, Sophea, and Mom were brought together with other women, Sakol was brought to a group with grown up men, and Dad was in his own separate group. We all then headed different directions as the soldiers separated us. I looked at everyone’s faces and they all looked confused not knowing what was happening. I started to struggle in order to try and regroup with my family, but they just yelled at me and pointed the gun directly at my head. At this moment, I knew I had to be quiet and follow orders or I would be dead on the warm dirt floor.

  A few minutes past, and I went over to ask one of the soldiers where we were heading, he responded with “We are going to camp in order to educate you.” The soldier had a smirk on his face as he then continued moving forward. I turned my head around scanning the area and saw the other boys looking sad, hopeless, and afraid. They too didn’t know what was going to happen or what these soldiers were going to do to them.

  After we finally reached the camp, I realized that the place was just a giant wooden roof with pillars surrounding the ends, and tables in the middle. Next to this building was a giant field and hundreds of acres of land all being heated by the warmth of the sun, by the time we got here, the sun was already rising and we could see the shine burning through Cambodia. The soldiers all started to sit us down in the tables and we all looked towards the front. There was a child around our age, who was leading the group. He talked loudly and confidently about what we were here for and why.

  “Everyone, from now on this will be the new Kampuchea, a new place of wonders and powers. We are the children, the men that will lead Cambodia to a higher power, to the time before fighting, to the golden age of the great Angkor times. Remember when our ancestors built the great Angkor Wat and ruled for centuries as the greatest, the most powerful. At that time, everyone worked, everyone participated, everyone was equal, and the workers were the leaders, not the commanders. We will celebrate this occasion with an anthem that we will sing every day. A few days before on April 17, that was our victory against the Americans. Now, to make Kampuchea a better place, we must build it up once again from our sweat and blood. This is a new place, a democracy; we shall be the ones who push this revolution. Hooray for Kampuchea, hooray for our mother land!” The person all the way in the front of the building spoke with voices of pride and happiness. He then proceeded to sing a song, an anthem, loud enough for everyone to repeat after him.

 

  “ The bright scarlet blood

  Flooded over the towns and plains of our motherland Kampuchea,

  The blood of our good workers and farmers,

  Our revolutionary fighters' blood, both men and women.

 

  Their blood produced a great anger and the courage

  To contend with heroism.

  On 17 April, under the revolutionary banner,

  Their blood freed us from the state of slavery.

 

  Hurrah, hurrah,

  For the glorious 17 April!

  That wonderful victory had greater significance

  Than the Angkor period!

 

  We are uniting

  To construct a Kampuchea with a new and better society,

  Democratic, egalitarian and just.

  We follow the road to firmly-based independence.

 

  We absolutely guarantee to defend our motherland,

  Our fine territory, our magnificent revolution!

 

  Hurrah, hurrah,

  Hurrah! For the new Kampuchea

  A splendid, democratic land of plenty!

  We guarantee to raise aloft and wave the red banner of the revolution.

  We shall make our motherland prosperous beyond all others,

  Magnificent, wonderful!”

 

  After the song finished, I realized that this was the song that was sung by the soldiers the last few days. This chant, this anthem, I understood that it was to celebrate our victory, but more importantly it was a revolutionary anthem for our ‘new country’. I looked around the building and everyone was standing up singing along, some repeated, some kept quiet. It was an odd time since we still didn’t know why we were here, and if we will ever return back home.

  When the voices finally lowered down, the boy in the front spoke once again in a more lower tone and his facial expression frowned, “This is the most important part, the rules of this new society that we will create together. Whoever disobeys or is thought to be a traitor to our new ideology will go to prison with no questions asked. You as the young members of this country will be asked to take an important role of reporting any misbehaviors or traitors including your own family. Yes, if your mother, father, and siblings are thought to be breaking these rules, they should go to prison. This is the only way our new Kampuchea will advance to power.”

 

  He then proceeded to talk about the main rules of this new society. There were a total of ten rules that we had to remember.

  1. There will be two meals per day, there should be no extra food given out, no more nor no less. The first meal will be in the in the morning and the next meal will be in the afternoon.

  2. There should be no form of literature, no books, no writing, and no letters

  3. You should not leave your homes outside the curfew.

  4. You will have to wake up every day at and be ready at these camps every 6:00 in the morning.

  5. You are not allowed to take breaks during the working hours and will be held punishable if you tend to do so.

  6. There will be no religion practices, it is forbidden in this new country.

  7. Nobody will own property, there is no such thing as private property, and everything is shared equally between everyone.

  8. Everyone will have to wear the same clothing that we provide you in order to fit and show equality.

  9. There will be no trading between other people, there will be no form or market or trading system, there is no more currency between people.

  10. You should not perform any more of the traditional Khmer traditions since this is a better and more advanced society than before. We should not mention anything of the past Cambodia from now on. We will only look towards the future and the hope of pride and power.

 

  “These are the new rules, we expect everyone here to follow them. If you happen to break these rules under any circumstance there will be consequences from prison to death. We ask everyone here that if you see anyone breaking ten rules, you must, must report it to your supervisor or the leader in charge. You do not need to worry if they are your family, anyone who tries to betray this new society, is family to none of us. Everyone here are individuals who should all strive to make Kampuchea a better place, you are the children who will lead this philosophy to the generations that will come in the future. Hooray Kampuchea, hooray everyone!” The boy in the front shouted as he raised his hands in the air in a fluid motion
. Everyone then clapped and cheered as the boy left the front of the building to go outside. Thinking to myself that if I ever saw my parents or siblings breaking these rules, I could never bring myself to turn them into the authorities, I don’t want them died nor do I want them to go to prison. I just want to return home safely with everyone and be together once again.

  Soon after, another man came into the building with two soldiers by his side holding guns in their two hands. He walked in with shades and a krama which is a Khmer scarf that is wrapped around the neck to protect from the sun. He had white clothing and looked clean and looked full of food. I thought to myself that this man appears to be one of the high officials, a leader of this new revolution.

  “Attention everyone, you will now begin work, please change into the prepared clothing outside that will be handed to you by the soldiers. We ask everyone to wear these clothes and head outside to the fields once their done. Instructions will be given out later once on the fields.” The man then spoke will a clear and bold voice and left the building with his two guards by either side.

  Everyone then got up from their seats and headed out of the building to the right where all the soldiers were holding their guns and around a hundred clothes were prepared. When I picked one up, I saw that the clothes were black and every set of clothes were the same. Each set had a long sleeved black button shirt and trousers with a krama and sandals as shoes. The krama were colored red and white with stripes as a normal krama would look like. Before leaving to the fields, all the kids were then stopped and I saw in the front of the line that everyone needed to get a haircut. When it was my turn to get the haircut, I looked at the barber and him an expressionless face, and quickly cut my hair short. My hairstyle was similar to a military cut and would better fit for labor in the hot sun.

  When we finally left to go to the fields, we all arrived in a large group everyone looking the same as the person right beside them. A man got to the front of the crowd and spoke in a large voice, “We are the workers, we will provide for ourselves for food through farming, everyone will have to work in these fields everyday as everyone will participate in rebuilding Cambodia. Our goal for this year will be to create an average of three metric tons of rice for every hectare of land in Cambodia. If you do not know how to farm, you will learn, if you choose not to follow, you will be beaten and killed. We advise to follow with our commands and our rules if you want to survive. Food is something we will create together, everyone is workers, and everyone is survivors.”

  We all then got our farming utensils to begin digging through the field in order to make space for the seeds to be planted. Personally, I did not know who to farm so I had to watch another kid who was a bit older than me, and had a better physique. He was skinny, but much stronger than me as he could easily plow through the fields in these hot conditions. I wasn’t used to this hard labor, and I wasn’t used to working for long periods of time under the same. My daily hobbies before I came here were just playing hide and seek and other games with my friends at school or with my brother and sisters. Every time I tried to plow through a section of the field with my shovel, I would constantly get the thought of why do we have to do this, is this my life forever, and will I ever get back to my normal life. I looked at other kids in the field, and they too looked desperate for getting out of the work. Nobody looked prepared to do this work physically nor mentally as this was probably their first time working in the fields.

  We worked on digging up the dirt for the next three or four hours until the sun was going down. At this point everyone was tired and I could barely move my arms or feet from all the work I had done trying to dig up the dirt in the field. An hour before, I saw a kid get brutally hit by a gun before getting shot in the head with the blood splattering all over the ground. They picked him out of the hole he was in from digging, and brought him over behind a forest. Apparently, he didn’t listen to orders and decided to sit down and take a break because he was too tired to move. The soldiers then proceeded to hit him multiple times causing gapping wounds in his face before shooting him right through his forehead. We could hear the bloody screams of the child all the way from the forest and it sent chills down my spine. I couldn’t have imagined what they were doing and how these soldiers who meant to protect us from enemies, were the ones killing and inflicting pain.

  When the hour passed, the soldiers who were watching us work called us up and out of the fields to go get some food. By this time, I was drenched in sweat from the bottom of the top. My hands were covered in dirt and my nails were broken as if it has been smashed by a rock. My feet were cut and had many scratches throughout the barefoot as occasionally when working my sandals would fall off when I was digging. When we finally got the food that was prepared for us in a large wooden building, I saw how little food they gave us. When I looked in my bowl, it was just a porridge that has been added with specks of salt and my face frowned. I looked around as other people were disappointed by their meal that they have been given after many hours of work. However, when one of the kids complained, they were smacked across the fast by one of the guards and he fell towards the ground. None of us dared to argue for more food because it would result in a cruel punishment as stated by the rules of not receiving any more or less food than given.

  After we finished our food, we were called back to work once again in the fields until very late at night. By the time we were finished, the sun had already gone down and we could hear the crickets in the night. The soldiers brought us back to our respective homes and I couldn’t feel or move any more of my muscles anymore. Any strength I had left was gone and I couldn’t even look forward since I was too tired.

  When I arrived back home to the wooden house, I was greeted by my family. There I saw Ping, Lynn, Sophea, Sakol, Mother, and Father once again. I rushed and went and hugged everyone who was just as tired. I saw how Ping, Lynn, Sophea, and my mom had their hair cut short similar to my haircut. They hugged me back and asked if I was okay, and I was responded with a simple yes.

  I was glad that my whole family was alive and no one got injured or died today. I looked at Ping and saw how she looked like a different person, her hair was short, her legs and arms were filled with dirt, and she looked lifeless. She looked like she could barely move herself and Ping was just sitting on Father’s lap snoring. She was too tired to stay awake and she already went to sleep. I couldn’t believe what they made her do, what they made Ping do. I thought to myself, is this going to happen every day, but I never asked my family. I didn’t want to know the answer, I didn’t want to know the truth, and I just wanted this nightmare to end.

  They also had the same style of clothes of black and everyone looked similar. The house that we were provided with didn’t have a shower or a bathroom; it only had beds and was very tiny. The house was dirty and very shaky with a sudden touch as if it was not supported very well by the wooden pillars. Their day was probably just as tiring as my day since they also had to work from morning to night.

  I was too tried to get clean and change my clothes, so I went tried to go straight to bed. When I went to my small room, it was just a mat on the floor, when checking throughout the room; it was filled with cockroaches and different types of insects. I was mortified by the sight of the bugs and I went to call my brother to kill them for me. He looked at me and teased me with two words “Still Scared?” as he laughed. Even with all that happened today, my brother was still able to laugh, he always knew how to make things happier.

  When the bugs finally fled from my room and there was none to be found I lied in bed and tried to go to sleep. I closed my eyes and could feel tears rushing down, I don’t want to live this life, and I don’t want to be stuck here for many years. My mom then came in and kneels down, I then felt her arms wrapped around my back.

  “It’s going to be okay Seang, I’ll protect you, and we will live. Don’t worry.” She whispered into my ears. I could feel the words empowering me, the love flowing through my body and into my
heart. I had a small smile and I took a deep breath.

  “I love you Mom.” I whispered back to her, as I brushed off my tears and closed my eyes once again to go to sleep for another day.

  Hunger