January 16, 2006 - page 2

Back in Siem Reap, some of us had the bus drop us off at a market for some quick shopping. My group then had lunch at the Red Piano, Angelina Jolie's favorite restaurant and bar during the filming of "Tomb Raider." Pictures of Angie and "Tomb Raider" posters adorned one wall of the restaurant, along with, oddly, the Muppets Statler and Waldorf. Of all the American pop culture characters to import, they had Statler and Waldorf. Despite seeing familiar reminders of home in front of me, I never felt more like I was in a foreign country.

I spent our siesta time packing, being that my roommate and I didn't wake up until ten minutes before we had to be downstairs and ready to go this morning. Our flight back to Saigon ended up being later than planned (Quang's advice to us concerning Vietnam Airlines was to "be flexible" and "go with the flow"), so our guides arranged for us to visit the Land Mine Museum and one of the Khmer Rouge killing fields.

The Land Mine Museum was actually outdoors and was created by Aki Ra, a man who has spent the latter part of his life finding and diffusing land mines and other dangerous war remnants. We were guided through the museum by an American man spending time in Cambodia. The museum displayed most of the land mines that had been diffused by Aki Ra. Aki Ra also adopted several children who had been wounded by land mines and were present at the museum. Their stories were also posted for us to read. What I learned in the museum was actually quite a shock, as I had never realized that land mines continued to be such a problem. Aki Ra's personal experiences with war and his lifetime commitment to land mine diffusion were both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Consciousness raising was clearly the purpose of the museum and it certainly reached its goal with me.