Child soldiers and learning, 1

Narun guided us in our visit to Angor Wat in 1998. He was young, married, but determined that he would not have children. He would live day to day, without allowing the concept of the future, or anything pertaining to it, to alight in his mind. Sandra and I were there the month that the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian government had agreed to cease-fire.

Narun was a brilliant guide, he spoke near-perfect English (self-taught), he had learned the stories of the bas-relief sagas on the walls of the temples, and he was able to unpack the meaning of the images and architecture, the figures, the history. He knew each variation introduced by each alternating Buddhist and Hindu king. From him, I gained my first bit of understanding of the concept of Indo-China: the crashing of Hinduism and Buddhism like waves down on the rocks-and-critters of a tide pool filled with colorful and extremely specially adapted plants and animals.

Narun grew up within 500 meters of Angor Wat. He used to climb the temple carrying a wire hook that he would use to hook bats out of the main tower's overgrown crannies. He and his mother had a banana tree in their home. As the front moved through Siem Riep during the Cambodian government's counter-attack on the Khmer Rouge, soldiers in the national army came to pick bananas from Narun's family's tree. At some point in this process--the third week, the third month, I really don't know--Narun snapped and shot a guy as he was climbing the banana tree. A while later, in Narun's story, the dead soldier's sergeant or commanding officer or something came by and conscripted Narun. Your kid can join the army or go to army prison, he told Narun's mother.

Narun's stories of his subsequent soldiering were about being very scared, minimizing fighting, and eventually escaping the army during an attack on the Khmer Rouge by running off downhill through a minefield in the dark. 

It makes for a good story.  

Returning home, Narun got  a guide's license (how did he get it?) and used it, among other things, to learn English. A journalist came into town and said that he was going west into the country to interview Pol Pot. Was there someone who could translate? For one hundred dollars. The other guides shuffled their feet for a second, and Narun said, Yes, I do. After that, it's a helicopter ride to wherever Pol Pot uscamped, the reporter drawing a map on a page from his notebook and ordering (basically) Narun to go query Pol Pot about his willingness to be interviewed. Narun visits Pol Pot, returns with the journalist and as the interview is being conducted he spots, among the Khmer Rouge bodyguarding Pol Pot, his childhood friend. Their eyes meet once, but they otherwise avoid contact.

Some time after Narun returned home, the sergeant or commanding officer or whomever it was shows up. He is looking for Narun the deserter. Narun's mother--smarter, more practiced, and now better resourced by her son the guide--offers him a bicycle. He accepts and pedals away. Narun had been married when we met him for two years. The overgrowth that had covered Angor Wat during the war was cleared away, guides were well paid, his wife was, he said, sweet and beautiful and true. He had explained to his wife, his childhood sweetheart, when they married that he would not have sex with her because he would not have kids with her because he could not, in all good conscience, think of the future. 

At that time that we met him I remember him saying that, having mastered English well enough, he was teaching himself German. 

Narun was a child soldier, his story here probably leaves a lot out (a lot). But it's an incredibly nuanced story. More positive than most. It might be important to remember Narun's child-soldierhood when we consider research on child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Coming up.  "