Cambodia : yesterday and nowdays

Cambodia  khmer ancien instituteur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cambodia commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Red Khmers in Phnom Penh; after 5 years of civil war and American attacks, the Khmer people lives in terror.

This man gets 270,000 riels as a monthly pension ( about 68 euros) and mainly by the solidarity of the monastery, a real social place; that’s where we met. Happy to speak in French, a language which became a symbol of freedom… the language he could use before the Pol Pot regime.

He evokes this dark period, discusses the persecution of religious, buddhist temples that were used as stables.

Now, the « rich of the Capital » are the ones who built temples. He fears the communist regimes still present in Vietnam and Laos, he is afraid that young Khmers forget history preferring going out and drinking…

 

Mind is like a monkey!

 

Why controling his thoughts and working on Buddha’s teachings? A meeting with a Buddhist monk in Phnom Penh in the monastery of Ounalom, center of Buddhism in Cambodia in which lives the head of the Cambodian Buddhist congregation. Wat Ounalom keeps a relic of the Buddha, an eyelash, and is the training center for Buddhist monks.

Cambodia wat ounalom