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By Root 761 0

is a choice. Pa says we have to keep moving to stay safe. For many others, they have no say in the matter. It is as if no village wants us nor do the soldiers know what to do with us. Eventually, another truck comes to take us to our new home, the village of Ro Leap. I climb in and sit by myself in a corner of the truck while the rest of the family huddles closely together. Meng had said when we arrived at Anlungthmor five months ago that there were approximately three hundred new people there, now more than two hundred of the new people have died from starvation, food poisoning, and malaria. I look over to see Ma holding Geak very tightly to her breasts, as if to never let her go.

“Ma, am hungry,” Geak cries.

“Shhh … It’s going to be okay soon.”

“Hungry, belly hurts.” Geak continues to cry.

“I love you very much and I will make things better. When we get back home, we will go to the park and get you your favorite food. We’ll get some Chinese pork dumplings. Won’t that be fun? We’ll have a picnic and a good swim, then go to the park and …” Geak is so thin that her cheekbones protrude out of her face. Her cheeks are now hollow, her skin hangs on her bones, and her eyes are dulled with hunger.

ro leap

November 1975

Seven months after the Khmer Rouge forcefully evacuated us from our home in Phnom Penh we arrive in the village of Ro Leap. It is late in the afternoon. The clouds separate in the sky and the sun shines beams of white light on our new home. Ro Leap looks like all the other villages we passed through on our travels. Surrounded by the jungle, it is green and lush during the rainy season and dusty and flammable during the dry season. Looking up at the sky, I smile and thank the gods for giving me a safe arrival. This is our third relocation in seven months. I hope we will stay for a while.

The town square is situated forty feet from the road and consists of nothing more than a dried up piece of land and a few trees. The town square is a place where people gather to hear announcements, instructions, work assignments, or, in our case, wait for the village chief. Behind the town square, villagers live in the same kind of thatched-roof huts that sit on raised stilts, all lined up in neat rows about fifty feet from each other at the edge of the forest.

The truck driver orders the new arrivals to get out and wait for instructions from the village chief. My family quickly jumps off the truck, leaving me behind. Standing at the edge of the truck, I fight the impulse to run and hide in the far corner. All around the truck, villagers have gathered to take their first look at us new people. These villagers are all dressed in the familiar loose-fitting black pajama pants and shirts with a red-and-white checkered scarf wrapped across their shoulders or around their head. They look like an older version of the Khmer Rouge soldiers that stormed into our city, except they do not carry guns.

“Capitalists should be shot and killed,” someone yells from the crowd, glaring at us. Another villager walks over and spits at Pa’s feet. Pa’s shoulders droop low as he holds his palms together in a gesture of greeting. I cower at the edge of the truck, my heart beating wildly, afraid to get off. Fearing that they might spit at me, I avoid their eyes. They look very mean, like hungry tigers ready to pounce on us. Their black eyes stare at me, full of contempt. I don’t understand why they are looking at me as if I am a strange animal, when in reality, we look very much the same.

“Come, you have to get off the truck,” Pa says gently to me. My feet drag my body cautiously toward his open arms. As Pa lifts me in his arms, I whisper in his ear, “Pa, what are capitalists and why should they be killed?” Saying nothing, Pa puts me down.

There are five hundred base people already living in Ro Leap. They are called “base people” because they have lived in the village since before the revolution. Most of them are illiterate farmers and peasants who supported the revolution. The Angkar says they are model citizens because many have never