SOM SOKROUEN

I come from a farming family. I was born in Por Bieng village of Kandal province. I am the third child of 5 siblings. My parents were farmers. When they were alive we lived with love and happiness. When I was upset, my parents would calm me down and when I was sick they cared for me. But one day, I lost my beloved parents forever.
It was raining heavily, mixed with thunder and lightning. My siblings and I were in the house. My older sister was cooking in the kitchen, and we were playing in the house. Suddenly, I heard a noise in the kitchen. My sister accidentally cut her right finger with our cooking knife and there was a lot of blood. Then we heard our neighbor’s voice from outside. He was shouting towards us. He told us that both of our parents were struck by lightning, and had died in the rice field. We were in shock and devastated from this tremendous loss. My tears slipped out without my knowing. In a moment, we had become orphans. My heart cried forever. This happened when I was 11 years old.

After the death of my parents, the house became so quiet. Life without our parents was very difficult. We struggled a lot. My siblings and I went to dig for wild potatoes in the forest, which we sold for money to buy food. We caught river prawns for food but we never had enough to eat. We had less and less every day. We were very afraid that we would die from hunger. Fortunately, our neighbors gave us some food. One day, our village chief told us that he found an orphanage that would allow us to live and go to school but we waited for almost a year.