He was born to the name Saloth Sar in the year 1925. He took over the capital city on April 17^th and killed over 20% of the Cambodian population. On the 15^th of April 1998, he died and was cremated a couple days later. His cause of death is still unknown today, his name still feared. He is Pol Pot.

           

            It is the 15^th of April. Night time. Two days before your 7^th birthday. Just as you start to fall asleep, you hear screaming, bombs and gunshots echoing through the city. You don't think; you just run to your parents. They can save you, can't they? But you look up at their faces. They're just as scared as you are. As you feel their tight embrace around you, you remember that you have forgotten something. No, two things. Quickly, you escape from their arms. Not knowing that this could be your last embrace.

           

            You have to get your teddy bear. And your grandma. Don't forget your grandma. Grandma is outside, doing late night gardening, her usual routine. She is slightly deaf and can't hear the screaming. You quickly grab her, and tug her into the darkness of the trees. You tremble and glance at the happy face of your grandma. Using sign language, as you can't afford to yell, you tell her what your father told you before.

           

            The Khmer Rouge is coming.

           

            You see her face falter for a second, and then soften into calm and determination. You can tell that she is going to do everything to make sure you get out safely. But what you don't know is that it means leaving the country.

 

            Your grandma makes you run. And so you run as if your life depended on it. But it does. So you run faster. Your grandma lags behind, and you push her in front of you. As you run, there are bombs going off everywhere, and you can already see that just by running, you might not get away, so you grab a bike and your grandma pedals, with you hanging on the back.

           

It’s like you’re in a daze. In what seems like a few minutes, you’ve reached the Khmer border. You know that the road from Phnom Penh to the Khmer border was tedious, and yet your grandma pushed through it all. On the way you saw a lot of death, but it wasn’t over yet. So you hold your teddy, grateful it survived, and hope sleep will come.

 

            You stay at the border for three weeks, until the man you’ve been waiting for, comes. You pay him and he takes you and twenty other people to a refugee camp in Thailand. On the way you have to walk quietly so the soldiers don’t hear you, and at night so they can't see you either. You sneak past robbers, narrowly dodge landmines, and stay aware of trees and holes.

 

            You’ve reached it. The refugee camp. Victory is almost yours. Until the birds see you that is. They squawk and screech and alert the guards that you finally notice the front of the gate. The camp is surrounded by barbed wire, and the birds ruin the easiest way to get in. So now you and the others have to find another way to get inside. The second easiest way in, is to dig a hole under the barbed wire fences. You and your grandma just manage to get in before two armed men run up towards the hole. Quickly, you grab her hand and run towards the rest of the group.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE MONTH

For one month now, you have been living in a dirty, smelly refugee camp.

 

TWO MONTHS

For two months now, you have been drinking the water of rivers that have been plagued with dead bodies.

 

THREE MONTHS

For three months now...

 

FOUR MONTHS

For four months now...

 

FIVE MONTHS

For five months now...

 

SIX MONTHS

For six months now, your grandma still hasn’t been able to get in touch with her sister in Australia to sponsor you. Until today.

 

           

            You see your grandmas face light up when she receives yet another letter, this one with good news. Your grandma’s sister has sponsored you and now, you are going to live in Melbourne Australia.

            In another six months (three months on the Thai border and three months in transit), you fly off to Australia! You feel so...happy, grateful to your grandma, excited, nervous and most of all, relieved.