by Pushpa Iyer
-USA-

Dr. Pushpa Iyer was in Sierra Leone leading a two-week course for fourteen Monterey Institute of International Studies and Middlebury College students. In this series of articles and student blogs, Dr. Iyer and her students reflect on the challenges to building peace in this war-ravaged country. -Ed.

Two bandaged stubs where his hands should be. While I contemplate how to greet him without a handshake, he gives me a bear hug. Completely taken aback and ashamed at my lack of response, I finally give him a smile as he welcomes me to sit down next to him. I am meeting with Ngwaja, a Sierra Leonean whose limbs were chopped off by the rebels in the country’s decade long war - a war that was undoubtedly one of the most brutal and violent in recent history.

by Pushpa Iyer
- USA -

At the entrance to the eerily preserved torture rooms in Tuol Sleng (the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia), there is a sign bearing the face of a distinctly Cambodian man who is laughing. Marked in red on his face is a cross, informing visitors that laughter is prohibited.

Our local host, from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, tells us that some Cambodians laugh when they are confronted with something uncomfortable, as a way to deflect their uneasiness in not wanting to display their innermost feelings. ‘Deeply-offended’ foreigners made an official complaint when they encountered laughing Cambodians in this starkly preserved museum. As a result, Cambodians, or at least some of them, are now deprived of dealing with pain and trauma in their own way.

by Pushpa Iyer
- USA -

It was close to 8pm on a Saturday two months ago. I was walking down a big, busy street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with a colleague, returning to our hotel after having dinner. As we passed a poor section of the city, I felt a slight movement behind me. When I turned my head, someone put their hands around my neck, strangling and almost choking me. In those few moments, the only thought in my head was: someone’s trying to kill me! Seconds later when I screamed, I felt a tug at the gold chain around my neck as my assailant let go. I was being robbed! The realization was a relief, and more so when I found my chain in the collar of my shirt - broken but still there.

by Pushpa Iyer
- USA -

Two weeks ago, late in the evening, Soma Bakshi, an educated, middle class young woman in Kolkata was set on fire by her husband and in-laws. This “incident” was preceded by a severe beating given to her by her husband and her mother-in-law. The only witness in this case was her two and half year old son, who recounted the beatings his mother received that night from his father and grandmother to the police. The boy still recalls his mother’s tortured cries. Soma, severely burnt, was kept gasping for life in the house without any attempt to seek medical assistance. Her parents, who arrived at the home some hours later after receiving news of an “accident,” rushed her to the hospital, where she died after a week of agony.