First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [72]
Within the next month, one by one the older boys and girls leave the camp with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing. They are sent off to help the war. Some go to live in other camps, where they learn to make poison stakes, and others follow the soldiers as porters. As porters they carry supplies, food, medical aid, and weapons for the soldiers and are often put in the line of fire. Many of the children have been moved to so many locations that their parents do not know where they are. Once gone, many of them are never heard from again.
Then the boys’ camp closes altogether. Met Bong says Pol Pot needed the boys to go and live in the mountains so they are closer to the other soldiers. There the soldiers can protect them. She tells us Pol Pot knows best but still she seems angry with their move. On the boys’ last night, while the children were sleeping, I got up because I had to go to the bathroom. From the bushes, I spied Met Bong and Met Preuf together by the fire. They were sitting on the ground, their shoulders touching. They talked softly, but the words were drowned out by the crackles of the fire. Met Bong then rested her head on the male supervisor’s shoulder and he put his arms around her. She is, after all, a young woman, and anywhere else this would be an everyday scene. I wonder why she is allowed companionship when we are not. When the boys left, they took their instruments with them. Now Met Bong still requires the girls to practice with the hope that soon the boys will return and we can all dance again.
Soon our camp population is reduced to forty girls, ranging in age from ten to thirteen. Now it is our turn, Met Bong tells us, to increase our training and fulfill our duty to Pol Pot. She gathers the girls together and instructs us to sit in a circle. “You are the children of the Angkar. You are here because you are the brightest and fastest. You are fearless and are not afraid to fight. The Angkar needs you to be our future.” She says this slowly, deliberately, filling us with pride. “One day soon you will join the older girls to fight the Youns, but for now there are many things you will need to learn.”
Met Bong stands up and disappears, only to return moments later with an armful of tools. They clang noisily as she drops them in a pile in front of us. Sitting before us she says, “All these tools you know already. We use them to harvest rice, plant vegetables, and build houses. But in the hands of fighters, they are also weapons of war. The round sickle, the hoe, the rake, the hammer, the machete, the wooden stick, and a rifle.” She reaches for the sickle and holds it up. “The sharp edge can take off the enemy’s head,” she says. “The point of the sickle can pierce a person’s skull.” My eyes widen as these images are imprinted on my brain. The top of my skull tingles. I look to see the other children listening intently, displaying no emotion. “The hammer smashes the enemy’s skull; the machete cuts them. When you have to protect yourself, make whatever you have into weapons,” Met Bong shares with us. I stare blankly at her, absorbing her words, showing no feeling while my hate for her grows stronger. These are the weapons Pol Pot’s men used on their victims, victims like Pa. I blink rapidly several times trying to chase away the images.
Met Bong picks a rifle from the pile, the same kind I have seen many times before on the shoulders of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. “This is a weapon I wish we had more of but they are very expensive. The ammunition for them is very expensive too, so we have few rifles to waste. The rifle is easy to shoot. Anyone can learn to use them—even a child can shoot it.” She calls me from the circle of forty girls. “This is one way to carry it,” she says as she puts the rifle