Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” -Gustav Flaubert
In some ways, the trip to Cambodia pushed my limits.
Working for an airline, of course I have traveled. For business. For pleasure. I am intimately familiar with the process of check in and airport standards.
But I have never been that far East. I never navigated through border controls and doing 20 hour flights. Alone.
Content can’t possible describe my feelings about the country of Cambodia. Inspiring. Peaceful. Courageous. Adventurous.
Thankful.
I watched the women who wake up at 430 am, travel 5 hours to arrive at the market and sell their wares for 2 hours before returning home. Each day, every day. I met students who attend school each morning at 700 and then work 9 hours in the hopes of paying for the privilege of attending university. They are hard working and tireless.
They are beautiful. Their smiles light up, no matter the circumstances they find themselves in. Proud with an incredible sense of culture and tradition.
I was awestruck in the presence of 12th century structures. I was moved by a terrible and tragic past.
And then it struck me. Why I had to come to this country. What had moved me to venture outside my comfort zone.
They had a lesson to teach me.
Cambodia and it’s people lived their life, some kindly, some prosperous, some quietly; oblivious to the catastrophe that would soon be upon them.
In a moment, everything changed. What they knew. How they would see themselves and others. Gone was their normality. Ushered in was their greatest tragedy.
And when it was over, they had a choice.Stay in a painful past. Or honour, to remember and then choose to forge a new way. A way that has more steps forward than steps back. A way that allows them to not just survive but to thrive. Whatever the challenges.
They are my kindred spirits.
Travel far and wide not so you change the world but so that the world may change you.