p Ngy Duch was a tall, lean, muscular youth of 22 with a narrow face, dark eyes and straight black hair. Buddhism had taught him never to inflict pain on another human being, and to abhor the war. When news of peace reached him in the town of Pailin, he had celebrated, playing his bamboo flute late into the night. But soon he and his ailing mother and several other relatives were driven from their homes.
p For 23 days Ngy shepherded his relatives eastward through 95 the forests, finally reaching the village of Ampil Pram Dawn. There, an Angka Loeu boss, a Comrade Mon, declared that the family would stay.
p Ampil Pram Daum, about 45 miles northwest of Battambang, once was a large village in the midst of fertile rice fields. The original residents had vanished, the 2,000 refugees had to build their own huts and create a “New Village”. . . .
p . . .Each arriving family was allotted a space, about five square yards, on which to build a hut. Normally, neither materials nor tools were provided.
p . . .In the evenings all New Villagers were compelled to attend ideological lectures and, frequently, to witness a Kosang, the Khmer word for “construction”. A Kosang was a ritualistic warning to someone who had displeased Angka Loeu. No one ever received more than two Kosangs.
p About mid-June, while working in the field, Ngy stepped on a sharp piece of bamboo which penetrated almost all the way through his foot. His whole leg swelled, he developed a high fever, and pains shot up to his waist, so he hobbled to Comrade Mon and requested a few days’ respite from work. “Such a tiny wound is not enough reason for staying home,” Comrade Mon said.
p That night Ngy received his first Kosang, as village committee members took turns berating him: “You must learn to live with pain. You must not be soft. You must not be lazy, trying to get out of work.”
Humbly, Ngy admitted he had been lazy malingerer. He pledged to work honorably for Angka Loeu.
Notes