Some Unfortunate News.

Yesterday morning, my family was robbed. My mom went to the market a little before eight and in the time it took for her to do the day’s shopping, everything of value was taken from the house: money, jewelry, important documents, my older brother’s computer, etc. The doors were all locked, so the robbers took an axe to a panel of the wooden door at the back of the house, squeezed through the opening, and went to work: rifling through dressers and drawers, folding back mattresses, and generally searching the place up and down. When I first got to site, I noticed that if you pulled hard enough on my locked door, it would open, so I told my Khmer dad who immediately replaced it with a sturdier, metal one. Because of this, my room was the only room in the house not broken into.

As all of this was unfolding, I was teaching at school and so blissfully unaware. I pulled up to my house at 11 AM, my mind going over my Valentine’s lesson for my younger students later, and was immediately pulled out of my thoughts by the 35 or so people gathered on the terrace and in the house. The first thing my dad said to me was, “Don’t worry, nothing of yours was taken.” This confused me, but after being ushered inside and seeing things strewn about, the door and the missing panel, I started to connect the dots. My Khmer mom sat on a bed in the living room, crying: “They took everything.” I had NO IDEA what to do at this point. What to say, or how to say it appropriately. So I just sat next to my mom and rubbed her back and hoped she could sense I thought it was okay for her to cry, and it didn’t embarrass me. Khmer are not too big on displays of emotion, and multiple times I heard a few of the men tell my mom not to cry- not in a mean way, it’s just a communal belief here that it’s best to keep emotion inside- so I hope she interpreted my hand on her shoulder as a “go ahead and let it out” kind of a thing…. Anyway, we sat like that for a while.

Inevitably, I feel a sense of responsibility for what happened. Despite what friends and even my Khmer family have tried to assure me, I feel like had I not been living with this family, they would not have been robbed. Having a foreigner living with them is a HUGE liability; everyone assumes that I have money, and things of value, which in the greater context of things I suppose is true. This morning, I told my dad I’d like to contribute something financially, since I feel in part responsible for what happened. “Ought-de!” (No way!) he immediately responded, shaking his head vigorously. “You are like a daughter to me. I want you to feel safe here. More than the things that were lost, I’m upset about the hurt this has caused us, and the doubt it’s made us feel.” As those of you who know me can imagine, this is where I promptly get all blubbery. My Khmer dad is such a good man- not too different from my real dad in the states.

I also feel guilty since my room was the only one that wasn’t stolen from. This fact sunk in only later, when I came upstairs and saw the scene in the common room that separates my mom and dad’s room, my room, and Waitchicka’s: the dresser opposite our rooms was thrown open, its contents strewn everywhere, and in the middle of my yoga mat, which sits near the window, there was a butcher knife. This scene also made me realize how lucky we are that none of us were in the house at the time it happened, as it seems someone easily could have gotten hurt.

On a positive note, it’s been impressive to see how much love and support has come to my family in this time of need. Friends and family have been trickling in and out of the house, a steady stream of about 40 people occupying the place at any given time. Yesterday my mom was consistently surrounded by a huge group of women, recapping the events in case they might’ve missed something. Inversely, my dad sat at the kitchen table— also surrounded, by a group of men— silent and stoic as always, but going over the details too, in his own way. This morning, when I came home from school, my dad was sitting in the same spot, this time on his own. Yesterday's page from the calendar sat, torn off, under his juice glass. Usually my mom just throws them away. It’s like he needed to keep the day around a little longer as proof it really happened.

It amazes me how little time my mom and dad have spent being shocked and devastated over all this, and how quickly they've moved into the “pick up the pieces” stage, bravely facing the reality of the situation. After I’d unsuccessfully asked my dad if I could help in any monetary way, he started to explain how in the coming days he plans on building a bigger fence around the house, installing new metal doors to replace all the wooden ones, and refurbishing the windows with sturdier metal rods than the current wooden ones which could easily be snapped and broken into if one were so inclined.

One last thing about all of this before I try to get on with things and help my family do the same: I’m so incredibly impressed with their ability to maintain optimism in the face of all this misfortune. Lesser people would allow themselves to feel let down by humanity, pessimistic and cynical, and maybe disillusioned with life itself for a little while, not to mention scared. I’ll admit, I felt all of these things when this first happened and still do a little bit. But not my Khmer dad or mom. They are grieving, I know, but they also know that life goes on. In the past 24 hours I’ve still seen my dad smile and laugh and my mom has hugged my shoulders affectionately and asked me “how’s it going” (Khmer people are not affectionate in the slightest, so this is kind of a big deal). They have seen enough of the bad before to know that it’s a part of things, and you have to take it in stride. Just like they did when they were young and poor and hungry, just like they did during the Khmer Rouge when all there was to eat was watery rice porridge and they were forced to work under the hot sun in the rice fields for 14 hours a day, they’ll find a way to pick up the pieces from this and move on towards better things to come in the future.