Pride, even embarrassment.We started the day with Bantay Srei, the citadel of the beautiful girl. Many of the temples were built in honor of a god and also dedicated to a person. Four kids were just inside one of the galleries playing with balloons, including, yes, one little, beautiful girl. They'd blow up the balloon, stick it in your face and let the air out, giggling all the while.
The walls built of different types of sandstone, with pinks and yellows, this is the most colorful of the temples.
The stones are a direct reflection of the color of the earth from that time. The quality of the carvings and sculpture is shocking. Hands from 967 etched designs, symbols, lessons into these stones. And they are still here. What fragile lives we live, and yet the efforts of so many in special places of the world still stand. It's a testament to human will in homage to god. Our second stop for the day was the Cambodia Landmine Museum. Aki Ra, a former Khmer soldier, who is spending his time out of the army undoing the work done while in it, has established the museum and a relief fund to aid the victims of landmines.
According to information at the exhibit, thirteen countries in the world are still (or haven't prohibited) producing landmines: Russia, China, India, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, USA and Burma. It costs $1 to build a mine and about $1,00 to find and destroy it. Aki Ra and his co-workers have been able to locate and diffuse up to 36 mines in an hour. Still, landmines have an activity life of 150 years, potential to affect people and their families for years to come. The CLMRF also houses a dozen or so children who've been exposed to landmines. Written consent is required to photograph any of the kids. As I was walking through the exhibit, a fifteen year-old kid strolled by, carrying a cell phone in his only hand.
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