March 5, 2013: Kampong Cham Interview

Our research team for Nam Mon's interview was the largest yet, with two student volunteers helping to take English notes and Khmer transcription during the interview, and a volunteer photographer taking pictures.   With a team of five people, we enjoyed the teamwork, but ultimately decided it was too many people for a comfortable interview. Nan Mon's lives in a village about 20 minutes from Kampong Cham city (about 3 hours out of Phnom Penh) in a traditional wooden raised house with slatted floors open to the ground below. Family, friends and neighborhood children came and went throughout the day under and into the house. You can hear their conversation, along with the sounds of chickens and passing motos and tuk tuks, on the interview tape. Nam Mon is certainly a central figure for much of the family's activities, with little time or privacy to herself. She raises her youngest children alongside her grandchildren while her daughters work in Phnom Penh, and supports herself as a farmer in a nearby rice paddy.  Along with her husband, she is a civil party to the ECCC and therefore is knowledgeable about the proceedings of the court. Non Mon's petition to the court is on behalf of her family, all killed under the Khmer Rouge regime.  Not included in her petition is her rape case at the age of 16, as sexual crimes are not being taken up by the ECCC.