A Student's Experience of the Eviction

Cambodia Project Blog
The Cambodian Education Project is a grass-roots effort to provide education and outreach programs to Cambodian children living in poverty. Programs are designed to elevate the opportunities for their future through education and character building, provide tools to avoid abuse/exploitation, and time to have fun in a safe, caring environment.

The following letter speaks for itself, but I will comment that Ly Thy is a tough girl, and so is her mom. The eviction was a major blow to them, but I am happy to say that Ly Thy has got on her feet and seems to be doing well 6 weeks later. She wrote this letter 1 week after the eviction. She also spoke to a group of foreign NGO workers at a forum to learn about illegal evictions, and gave a powerful speech.

Hello,

My name is Ly Thy. I am a nineteen-year-old female student. I want to tell the world how my feelings are when our homes were destroyed on the 24th of January, 2009. When I first saw many people came over to our neighborhood, I thought that they were going to give us more warning as they had done in the past. Then soon the terrified moment took place right in front my eyes. Immediately, the men began to destroy people's homes with such a horrific act and no mercy. Without saying a word, they started to tear down homes violently as if they were extremely angry with the home owners.

From the beginning, as the demolition started, I was thinking about finding a knife or a bat to resist and fight back. I found a stick. Then I came to my sense of realizing that my action will not succeed and consequently I will be in deeper trouble. I imagined if I were to kill someone by accident or intentionally, I will be quickly arrested and put in jail. My future will be jeopardized.

Next I dropped a stick to the ground and let them do whatever they want. I felt intimidated. My body weakened. I froze! Every inch of my body went numb. My mind went blank. I stood there silently, motionless watching my own home being destroyed.

One by one the bulldozers flattened the homes until it came to mine. My heart wrenching when I saw my own home was being smashed. We began to curse at them, using the worse words possible that we could think of, with my mother, my younger sister, my brother in law and me who were screaming, cursing and yelling at them with enormous anger and disbelief. I wanted to cry so badly. Yet, there was not one tear drop that came down. I could not understand or explain why this was happening to me. My system was in a shocked state, and it was no longer functioning and reacting the way it should be. I kept wondering why I couldn't cry.

Unimaginable to me, with a blink of an eye, my home was gone. There was nothing left! All it left for me was a pain in my chest, fear, a sense of great loss along with a tremendous despair feeling inside of me. Then my thoughts fell to old memories. The memories of how my dad worked so hard for so long before he could afford and provide us a small place that we could call home. It was this rundown tiny home that represents his hard work and dedication, which offered a safe haven for all of us. For me, it represents not only a great memory but also an irreplaceable part of my dad that he had left behind before he passed away.

While my home was being destroyed, my mother was crying uncontrollably and attempted to run back into the house to kill herself. Our quick reaction was to save her from committing suicide. We retained and consoled her to save her life. All I could think at that point was that hopefully we could build another house, but we could never replace my mother. People's lives are so precious, and there is nothing worth more than life itself.

Moment later, as all the turbulent activities went on, I turned around wondered what could have happened to our school, Aziza. I saw the 7NG Company's people began to close the front entrance. At this very moment, I wanted so badly to intervene to stop them from closing the school entrance. At the same time, I found no strength left in me. My entire body was completely drained and exhausted after witnessing my own home had just disappeared.

Because of many students effort by working together voicing their opinions, the 7NG people agreed to leave a space one meter from the school's front door to allow access in and out of our school, Aziza.

As I tried my best to put some of my thoughts in writing this, I found I became very emotional, and it is extremely difficult for me to continue on. I feel too sad to talk about it... I am sorry for not being able to write more.

Sincerely,
Ly Thy

(translated by volunteer Paul Chuk, a semi-retired Cambodian American who has returned to help Cambodian children. Ly Thy speaks and writes English quite well, but was asked to write in Khmer for this exercise.)