The last few days….

It was very surreal getting packed up and clearing everything out of the house that we had lived in for about two years. It was still pretty hot out. We had been doing our best to teach the kids how to use email as well as our co-teachers so we could have a means to keep in touch. We went around town, telling our goodbyes to people we had met over the course of time. I think I went to buy a tube of Pringles one day, and told the woman I would be leaving soon. And then she brought out a picture of her nephew that lives in Chicago and wondered if I knew him or lived close to him. Sigh.

We gathered so much of our stuff, and gave a lot of it away to the kids' families and our host family as well. I spent as much time with little Winston as I could (I grew so darn attached to her.) One of the afternoons, on a rainy-thundery day, I finally was able to sit down with my host-mom and brother while she told me her story of living during the Khmer Rouge period. I was grateful she was able to tell me about it through Dara and that she was willing to share such a horrible, traumatic experience. She many times has said that she wants to have things easy, as she has already lived through hell. I was just grateful to have that afternoon with her telling her stories. I’ll never forget it.

We did what we could to try and say goodbye to everyone that was important to us. It was hard. How do you finish up a chapter in life like that? I guess you just wait until the hour-glass runs out. I remember all of us sitting around in the veranda area, where there was the best cross-breeze in the house, listening to the loud music of the funeral that was across the street. It was too loud to talk. Too hot to move. So we just sat in each others company, knowing that our time was coming to a close. And then all of a sudden, I realized that my host-father was getting up from his chair because he had to leave to attend the funeral, and I stood up and the next thing I knew, I had tears rolling down my face as I knew it was time to say goodbye.

Soon after that the neighbor kids’ mother came by, wearing the clothes I had given her. She too had tears in her eyes. We took one last picture with the kids we had grown so close to, and then our tuk tuk driver pulled in the driveway.

We waved as we drove away and I watched the dust from the gravel road kick up behind us. I waved to my sewing teacher as we passed by her house. We asked the driver to circle around the market one last time. We shouted to our co-teachers as we passed their shops. Then headed out on Road 6 towards Siem Reap for the last time. I remember looking back and seeing the town of Puok getting smaller and smaller, and looking around at the scenery that surrounded us on that sunny and bright afternoon…rice fields, coconut trees, loud rusty cars, water buffalo, motorcycles, people staring at you….and just letting the hot wind blow across my face.