grandma's wanderlust

Monday, February 20, 2017

The traveling grandmamma: Treated as family

The traveling grandmamma: Treated as family: Sometimes I am so thick that I amaze myself. There are many says that I don’t understand. I really don’t. One of them is: “I was tr...

Treated as family

Sometimes I am so thick that I amaze myself.

There are many says that I don’t understand. I really don’t.

One of them is: “I was treated like family”.

We all know that all families are different.

Some are wonderful, other ones they kill (literally) each other.

Most families fall in between these two extremes, and let’s face it, most families are dysfunctional. Some more than others, but most of them are to some degree.

Many families are very nice. They like each other, they respect and trust each other. They meet regularly, they talk all the time, and they enjoy each other company. They might disagree here and there, but they still respect the other’s person believes, ideas, or outlook on life. They are family, so even when they disagree they will support each other, because that is what families do.

Other families don’t get along. They don’t talk with each other and they don’t respect the individuals, their ideas, or way of life. Needless to say, they don’t trust each other. They might even stop talking to you permanently if you disagree with their ideas or believes. It happens more often than you know. Sometimes a little misunderstanding divides families beyond repair.

Many families like some of their relatives but not all of them. They gossip and talk behind their backs while smiling to their faces. Whether we want to or not, we all know families like this.

Some families are abusive, whether physically, sexually, or both.

So I will ask again, why people imply they were treated wonderfully when they say: I was treated as family, when most of the time family don’t treat each other right?

Beats me.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Backpacking my style: The depresing side of walls.

Backpacking my style: The depresing side of walls.: The Berlin Wall I love my life!!! I am living the way I want to live, doing what I want to do, the way I want to do it. ...

The depresing side of walls.

The Berlin Wall

I love my life!!!

I am living the way I want to live, doing what I want to do, the way I want to do it.

I have a lot of fun in my life. However, sometimes I visit some sites that depress me for days at a time.

I am glad to say that there were not so many terrible sites on my 8 years of travel. Nevertheless, there were a few.

The worst one was when I visited a concentration camp and the Berlin Wall in Germany.

I was very depress for a few days following the visits. It was as if a heavy dark blanket had fallen on me and I could not get out from underneath.

Another very depressing site was seeing the West Bank Wall, Palestine. It is so big, so imposing, so cruel…

I cannot comprehend why people do these atrocities, just because… I don’t understand because why??

And couple weeks ago the S21 and the Killing Fields in Saigon, Cambodia. Where over two million of “undesirable” citizens where torture and killed. That represents 25% of the population.

I have met some wonderful people. Many different nationalities, religion, and races. People with different traditions and customs. I have been invited into their homes to share a meal or festivities. And it has been great.

And that is all I am saying.

I hope that during my travels I won’t see any more depressing sites or walls.

But what I am really hoping it’s for people to learn from history and realize that these atrocities don’t solve anything.

We are supposed to go forward, toward a brighter future. Not toward the same mistakes and atrocities of the past.

Remnants of the Berlin Wall

More than 55000 Berliners fell victim to Nazi racial fanaticism

West Bank Wall, Bethlehem, Palestine


A piece of the Iron Wall, Budapest, Hungary

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Backpacking my style: A visit to S21 and the killing fields, Phnom Penh,...

Backpacking my style: A visit to S21 and the killing fields, Phnom Penh,...: One of the reason I came to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was to visit S21 and the killing fields. Taking a two day slow boa...

A visit to S21 and the killing fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

One of the reason I came to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was to visit S21 and the killing fields.

Taking a two day slow boat from Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon), Vietnam, I arrived not only in the capital, but also the sex capital of Cambodia.

Next morning I took a tour to S21 and the killing fields.

S21 was a public school that during the Khmer Rouge under the regime of Pol Pot, was turn, from 1975 to 1979, into a torture, interrogation and execution center, .

Today S-21 Prison is known as the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide.

They kept records and pictures off all the prisoners that enter the interrogation center. They also described the type of torture used on each prisoner. So the Khmer Rouge could see that their orders had been carried out and how.

Those manuals, some of the torture instrument and the shackles and chains used, are on exhibition at the museum.

14,000 people enter the center and only 7 survived. 5 babies and two boys. The two boys are old man now and they sit every day in the garden and talk with the people coming to see the prison.

The prisoners were kept at the prison until they confessed. After those atrocious tortures, starvation and loss of hope, I guess anybody would confess to anything they wanted you to confess.

Once they confess, the prisoners were sent to what it is known as the killing fields.

There were many killing fields all over Cambodia.

As the prisoners arrived, they were killed right away and thrown into mass graves.

They had loud speaker playing music, so the neighboring farmers would not hear the screams. They also threw lye in the graves so they won’t smell the rotting corpses.

Bullets were expensive, so they used to hit them to death with bamboo, or shovels, or anything else they had on hand.

The babies were thrown against a tree or thrown into the air and catch with a bayonet. There are pictures of soldiers having a game of this.

Between all the killing fields, more than two million women, men and children were killed. And when you have into consideration that Cambodia had 8 million people, you are talking about 25% of the population.

It was a terrible place and you can feel it in the air as you walk through the prison and the fields. Nevertheless, it is a place we all must see, as it is part of history.

Because I did not have enough suffering seeing all these atrocities, that night I watched the movie “The Killings Fields” (1984). With Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands and Craig T. Nelson. Directed by Roland Joffé.

The movie narrates the experiences of two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. It tell how they were trapped during Pol Pot's bloody cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million "undesirable" civilians.

Excellent movie, I saw it when it came out, but today I wanted to see it again. And I am glad I did.

Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide

The square box was the "toilet"

The Gallows were used to hang prisoners up side down while being torture. When they passed out, they were dip into the planter fill with filthy water.