Finding Father in the Motherland

angkor wat, cambodia, ponara eng

30 Apr, 2009 by Ponara Eng in Opinion

One of my most cherished memories this year was taking a bumpy van ride for hours into the Cambodian wilderness, without an address or clear directions about where we were going. We didn’t even have a phone number. But my Aunt, my Father’s only family in Cambodia, had a clue, and off we went. Sure enough, by face she recognized somebody in this one street town called Sreyville, the town of my birth, and pretty soon arms were opened, tea was served and stories of youth were shared. A few minutes later I found myself in a lush green field, dotted with trees swaying in the wind.

We walked down a small path with a machete to clear brush and arrived at a clearing. It was the home of my Father’s grave. We served him food, tea and incense. I symbolically cleared brush around his lonely headstone and prayed to him. Months earlier my Mom suggested that I not risk bandits or getting lost to look for him. But Cambodia is a safer place than it used to be and in my heart, he’d been calling me there for years. In a trip filled with memories, it was my favorite one.