MotherLand Cambodia, Place I Can Not Forget

Yesterday I, krishna and Leng met my friend who just came from Phnom Penh for his long vocation. He started his conversation with what a horrible mess our traffic system was and how bad the electricity supply was. His nose up in the air he went on rambling about all the political and economic chaos our country is going through. Then with a smug smile he continued with how wonderful everything is in Russia and America.
I felt stung with the negative remarks about Cambodia, my beloved country. However, I agreed with him and then simply said,

“I know all the problems are there but still it is my motherland and I love this land.”

Meeting him ( my friend ) that day and listening to his remarks about my motherland set me thinking about how deeply I love this land. I love my motherland just as I love my mother. If my mother is sick, if she is in trouble I will not leave her or turn my back on her. Now that my country has its hundreds of problems do I just vanish from the scene because it is in a bad shape? Will that be my way of thanking the country where I was born?

Te, that cannot be. For I love this soil, my motherland. This is the land that has given my birthrights. This land has given me my freedom to live as an individual. I breathe its air, I use its land, its water and I sleep under its star lit sky. It is this land that has given me honour and love. I was born free and enjoy my freedom within its boundaries. What else does a man need? Freedom, the greatest gift needed to live the life to its greatest height is given to me by this land !
I adore my villages and my towns. The serenity of the green villages as they roll one after another beneath the blue sky touches my soul. I feel a pang of affection for the poor people who live there. They may be poor but their poverty rouses in me the desire to help them.

When I was in my motherland I sometimes went for a walk alone. I saw the Mekong river flowing by. I sat on the bank and thought of the floods that would have them swelling and washing away the poor people’s lands. My heart cries for the loss the people will face. The towns of my country are beset with traffic jams, unplanned housing and poor drainage systems. The cities are over populated and have hundred other problems. And yet I will say that no place in the world feels homely as Phnom Penh does. The capital city reeling under its troubles has given my home. I feel the pain for my motherland just as I feel the pains my mother goes through. Mother, motherland and mother tongue, all seem to be bound to my heart through an invisible thread. When any one of them is well my heart sings amd feel relief but when any one of them is in pain my heart cries.
Love and honesty compliment each other. And I know my country is at the present riddled with problems. The prices of essentials are getting beyond the reach of the common man. There is the desperate need for transition to democracy. The frequent electricity failure makes life hazardous. The long queues of traffic makes one feel like growing wings and fly over it all. Speaking of problems we can go on adding to the list. Maybe the list of the good things done in this land will be shorter and yet does it all make me feel like leaving this country and migrate to a foreign land? No, never. If my motherland is in trouble I have to step in and try to help it, not run away. How can I? Is this not the very land where I was born, the land that has given me its soil to live?

I love my country from the sky above to the bottom of the riverbeds. I love the sky through all seasons. Summer adn raining seasons, I breathe freely under this infinite blue. My heart marvels at the sight of the seasonal flowers and fruits. Rainy days i stood in the pouring rain as if to mingle my spirit with the nature. The smell of the “Malis and Angkeaboth” flowers pierces through my heart and lights the eternal flame of love for this land. I know that soon the summer in october will come and I wish that the blue sky would find me sitting beside the lake staring for long hours at the “Lotus” flowers while they dance with the wind in a pond. I feel a close kinship to my land, to its soil when I am with nature. Every sunrise and sunset that I witness seems to fill my heart with glory, I feel as if I am in heavens just because I witness them in the sky of my motherland. My soul finds life anew and awakes with the sun rising in the horizon. At night a mesmerized me stares at the full moon with the countless stars in the cambodian sky. I am in heavens! I tell myself. How peacefully and how contentedly I can watch the beautiful sky. With all these aesthetic feelings comes a feeling of belongingness to this whole world just because I happen to be in my own motherland. This land is my love, it holds my destiny. I feel my very roots holding me to this land. It is like the umbilical cord that tied me to my mother before I was born.

My country has given me the gift of my mother tongue Khmer, the language through which I laugh and cry, the language that gives me the freedom to read, write out my heart and to speak all want i want to say. Especially, a phrase i once talked to a girl ” I love you. I want to give my faithful love to you. I want to care you. I am happy to see you live in happinese around my hands”. If I did not have a language to express my thoughts and emotions freely how suffocating life would have been! How dearly we have paid for our language and independence! Why did your language martyrs and our freedom fighters lay down their lives if I leave my country to live in another foreign land because it offers me more comforts and luxuries of life? Will I be doing justice to the millions who have given their blood for this country? If I want to live a worthy life will I not contribute a little to my nation? If each and every citizen contributed his or her part to the cause of nation building would we not be a stronger nation?

Socially, politically and economically we are challenged. And so the dire need of the hour is that we, each and every citizen stand in unity to help our country- Cambodia. Patriotism cannot be only dreamed about, it has to be there, in our actions. There are people who offer lip services, some who remain unmoved by the tears of their country and some who flee for their own benefits. The country, my beloved Cambodia needs its people, people who can come forward and help it overcome its hurdles. Can we not overcome obstacles that lay on the way of our nation’s prosperity? We have won our freedom with sheer strength of unity and surely we can win another war, the war of standing with our head up among the other nations of the world?
It is said that the deepest feelings often remain beyond words. Although I can go on about how I love my country. However, I feel that the exact feeling for the pang of love that clutches my heart for my country is beyond my words. To my friend the ease and comforts of America and Russia are more important. Of course he has all his rights to choose his happiness. But to me life comes on a different path, through the roots that binds me. I felt welcome and happy and yet I just could not leave my motherland and settle down there. My happiness in my small, poor country is greater. This happiness makes me feel like a bird that soars up in the infinity of the sky. And at times I feel like a proud hen. All my chicks are under my wings and I live, clucking on my own soil; my very own Cambodia. How happily I sing,
“ Romdoul Angkor” ! or ” Proud to be Cambodian ” !

Now even I am far away from my beloved country, yet my heart, my soul and my memoir is in Cambodia, where my family, relatives, friends and people are living with pride. I decided to leave my country for finding higher education because I love my country ! I want to help this small and poor country ! I never regret with my decision to left her this time. I will come back when I finish my higher education in this country ( Russia ) .