In that moment, Tek saw her grandmother as a young woman who had endured impossible loss. “I felt her pain.”
That, Tek said, overpowered her own experience in Cambodia.
Later, Tek traveled to the child labor site where her mother had helped build a dam, forced labor that nearly killed her. Now it is a tourist attraction, she said, “not for the history of the place, but ironically, for the scenery of the place.”
She wondered if the merchants there knew people had died building it.
“It was difficult and still is difficult for me to compose my feelings about what had happened during the Khmer Rouge era,” Tek said.
The ECCC victims support unit provided an antidote for her anger, she said. Tek would channel her energy into efforts that helped those who suffered from such atrocities – and perhaps would help prevent them in the future.
Last October, when Tek and her grandmother traveled together to Cambodia, they connected with relatives such as these proud cousins in Siem Reap.
Soon after her return from Cambodia, Tek stopped at O’Donnell’s UMW office. They talked about her next step.
Tek has set her sights on graduate school. For now, she works part time at Genocide Watch.
“I think she will be an important player in the fight for human rights,” O’Donnell said. “I’m proud of what she’s done. I’m even more proud of what she will do.”
Read more about Fulbright Scholars here.
- Fulbright Scholar Studies Children of Chernobyl