Many locals are pessimistic about the prospects of democracy in their country, while rampant corruption blights Cambodia's economic development. The people are so poverty-striken that they have destroyed much of the forest and fauna, and now look to exhaust the supply of fish within the country's Great Lake. Most Khmer still live in rural villages, planting rice, just growing enough food to live. Any electric light comes from a jerry-rigged system attached to a car battery. Clean drinking water is a luxury.
Sanitation is several boards nailed together over a ditch to preseve modesty.
But for the Khmer life continues. Sitting in the quiet evening, I would listen to the crickets hum and watch the children with tiny wooden boxes fish for giant snails in the canals and discuss the future with the young boys who squatted beside me. I had come here to learn about the Cambodian auto-genocide, but what I really found here was the courageous spirit of the Cambodian people. Whether the tragedy is indeed over for Cambodia remains to be seen - Hun Sen's violent coup in 1997 and the extrajudicial killings that followed it hearken back to a time most Khmers thought had long passed. But it was clear to me today in the eyes, the words and the smiles of the Khmers we met that the brave Cambodian people will survive, no matter the odds.