Visiting Trash Mountain and The Killing Fields

Elder Roberts was most of the way done with the major project that he had come to Cambodia for as we left the office last night. This morning we took Elder and Sister Roberts to see a side of Phnom Penh that most tourists never see, Trash Mountain, which is known because of the book "The Rent Collector", and The Killing Fields, from the Pol Pot era here.

Elder and Sister Meinzer, the LDS Charities Senior Couple, were kind and took us out to Trash Mountain. The Church has already done several projects with Scott Neeson of Cambodian Children Fund (CCF) and there are several more in the works. This is the poorest part of town and CCF is trying to help bring them up out of poverty through education. As we walked around we had several members stop us to say hi. This area is in the Steung Mean Chey 3rd Ward. It was very sobering to see these families living in about 210 square foot little corrugated tin huts, up on stilts. We even met a 104 year old grandma that was excited to point out where she lives.

The Killing Fields is where Pol Pot took those he felt that were enemies to the state to be killed. The Khmer Rogue considered the educated, entertainers, rich, religious and any one suspected to be in opposition to them were enemies. The enemies were first taken to a former High School to be interrogated and tortured. After that they were taken out to a spot about 10 miles away to kill them. Thus the name, the Killing Field. It is always sobering to realize that the Khmer Rogue either killed, starved or due to living conditions wiped out 25% of the population in three years eight months and twenty days.