My Protanopic Life

In the morning I went to find a bookstore and ended up first having breakfast and photographing the graffiti that had been done by Londoners. I found the bookstore and it was closed but a man told me it opened at 9:30. When I was on my way back I met an Australian I'd spoken with the night before and asked him about where to go. As we were discussing S21 and the killing fields my Japanese friend Taka came walking up and asked me if I'd like to go with him to see one of those places, then head to Siem Reap. We had the same itinerary and so we went together.

S21 is a school that had been converted into a prison camp. It's the most mindless thing I've ever seen in person. Education is important if for nothing else than to teach people that it is not ever OK to imprison, torture and kill people, especially in large numbers. The details were different but the story was the same as the Nazis or any number of other historical genocidal world powers. There were school rooms that had been sectioned off into tiny cells for prisoners. There were dozens of school rooms that had been used as torture chambers. There were arm locks for use with extremity torture, electric shock machines, drowning tubs and waterboards. It was really mindblowing...

We didn't have time or will to see the killing fields so we went to a restaurant near the bus station and had pizza and beer. It was good to have a good American meal. Taka and I talked about America and work, he's also in IT. I remembered a lot of the BS I'd left behind like the messed up economy, the war, the politics, employment.

On the bus to Siem Reap I thought about being unemployed and how I had used my job as a source of identity, and how now I was searching for something to replace that role, or to find how to get by without it. I'm still on that bus and I've got a few more hours to think about it.