Happiness

What is the deal with poor countries that have been through the worst things imaginable having such happy and generous inhabitants? Take Cambodia for example. Not too long ago the Khmer Rouge were in control of this country and doing the most horrific things to the people.

The Khmer Rouge was all about the extermination of the intellects and they actually managed to turn people against each other, families were ripped apart because the children were brainwashed into thinking that people should be killed for being smart. A third of the population was killed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, all the doctors, the teachers, the philosophers, the academics, anyway who came from a family with people like that. All the intellects were called the 'new liberated' and the peasants and poor people were the 'old liberated' and the Khmer Rouge's influence was so strong that the old liberated actually turned against the new liberated. Young boys from poor families were taken from their home by the Khmer Rouge and were brainwashed into thinking that the intellects had to die, and he way that they would crack these young boys was to get them to kill babies by bashing them against walls. Among other things.

This didn't stop until 1998, so this is a pretty recent event, and if you think about it now, every Cambodian is either a descendant from a survivor, or a Khmer Rouge fighter.

But if you go to the country now you will meet so many people smiling and laughing and having a good time with each other. Just today my sister and I were jumping on a trampoline, and three little Cambodian children came in and joined us, a girl and two boys, all under 5, and they started jumping with us and laughing their asses off and showing us tricks and teaching us and holding hands with us. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had in Cambodia. Similarly, in Battambang at the bamboo train, at the end of the line are a bunch of children who take you around the brick factories and talk to you all about it expecting money in return of their services, but after they had shown us around and we had given them money they stayed around to play games with us, like the kind of games you'd play in primary school - 'my aunty Anna played the piano twenty-four hours a day, split' - and they taught us these games and we stayed for ages playing these games with them. Women would sit and talk and laugh in markets or in workshops or just on the street. Men would play intense games of volleyball in empty plots and get really into it.

How does this happen? How is it possible that a country that has so recently seen so much devastation can be full of so many happy people? It's incredible, and inspiring.