My Friends at Angkor, Cambodia

May, 1997  

I fell in love while visiting the temples at Angkor, outside of Siem Riep, Cambodia.  This adorable little girl with her pretty lace dress and unstoppable smile held my hand and took me giggling through the temple ruins.

These kids are so determined.  After the devastation and genocide of the Pol Pot regime, the kids came back, growing everywhere like fresh green shoots after a forest fire.  This little girl's brother was an amputee (one in 250 Cambodians are).  She had learned bits of English, Japanese, German, and other languages from the visitors to Angkor; and she converted international currency in her head with deadly accuracy.

Later in the trip I visited the massive temple of Angkor Wat at sunrise.  The sky moved through intense shades of lavender and rose, with a sort of morning alpenglow on the old stone walls of the temple.  I can remember looking at the long stone serpent "naga" balustrades, snaking the length of the vast courtyard, and as I peeked over my shoulder I saw another little girl, skipping along, singing in her own language (Khmer).  What an uplifting scene at the dawn of a beautiful day.  I thought of the monks, who for a thousand years had ritually swept off the stones with their brooms every morning.  I thought of the bullet holes in the walls left by the Khmer Rouge troops.  And I watched this little girl dance along the railing, and felt absolutely overjoyed.  These kids are the soul and the future of Cambodia.

Michael Hawley

mike@media.mit.edu