Fade to Light

(Writing Through Cambodia)

By Jack Schimmelman

Sue Guiney with her students

Used by permission

Sue Guiney consciously wades into loves ruin illuminated by emerging

light. A palette that formerly reflected obscenitys apex now reveals the
beautiful, gracious landscape of Cambodia. Her colors are the children
of the unbowed who survived the arbitrary betrayal of reason. She has
merged with that cultures heroic attempt to open loves third eye when
not long ago frozen tundra ruled the sun in the form of Pol Pot, Hitlers
offspring. Ms. Guiney is transparent. Shadows flee before her heart.
Ms. Guiney gently elicits a childs imagination steeped in the breath of
Cambodia. Their lives are source material. She helps them write poetry
and stories that lay dormant within their hearts. The language is
English. It is the language that they will need to live in order to master
their economy. The program is called Writing Through Cambodia. They
are empowered as they write prose and verse. They learn to ask and
answer why? Imagining a new way of being, they blissfully inhale the
lessons that Ms. Guiney imparts to them; these are children who joyfully
walk with us as we pray there is not another Pol Pot incubating in the

ruins of their ancestors. Their grandparents terror rumbles in their DNA

clamoring to emerge and climb Cambodias elegant peaks. But it is
always children in whom we place our hopes and dreams. That is our
nature. Who dare resist optimism when staring into the eyes of an
infant? If we do, we betray ourselves. Sue Guiney nurtures hope in a
land that proves to us all that we are an amazing species, able to rise
from the fires of despair.
Writing Through Cambodia started in a small school, the Siem Reap
educational shelter, Anjali House. As darkness fled before joy and love,
her program spread throughout Cambodia. Today, Writing Through
Cambodia is taught in many Cambodian schools as well as NGOs based
in that graceful dreamscape. Today, the seed that Ms. Guiney has
planted is blossoming exponentially. One woman in one classroom
believing in the power of her students is spreading throughout
Cambodia. The glow of that creative blaze is attracting other countries
throughout the region. Ms. Guiney trains staff throughout the world to
build upon her modest vision that is now a grand window into the future.
Just one year ago (2013), Cambodias citizens courageously protested
their governments corruption and betrayal. Ms. Guiney encouraged her
students to write about what they imagined could be. She played David
Bowies song, Changes. Through this song, with fearless hearts they
found freedom by sailing within to express possibilities.
Cambodias stage still shudders at the misery most have lived. Ms.
Guiney encourages the gift of expression by children of a traumatized
society; she gives young people wings upon which they create poetry,
prose. In this way they travel. One might assign heroic status to the
people of Cambodia, but I am betting that what Ms. Guiney witnesses is
the eternal human journey that keeps us going forward despite the
insults of time. Is there anything more profound than that? It is
ordinary, yet it elevates breathing to feats of magic.
Ms. Guiney says that she has lived her life as the perpetual outsider.
Growing up protected, middle class on Long Island, being married,
having children, loving her husband and children, an expatriate living in
London for the last 20 years, she is still the outsider; the observer. Such
is the stance of the writer; a conscious journey. However, when by
chance she happened upon Cambodias poetic tone, she suddenly felt at
home. She was enchanted. No longer an outsider, but a part of the
fabric. She knew quite well what had happened in that beautiful country
many decades ago. She expected to find vestiges of trauma amidst
societys rubble. She also found beautiful, peaceful children who
yearned to discover more. She began to elicit their untold stories into the
sun. The children of Cambodia are her benefactors. She receives their

blessings. She told me that the predominant language in this poetic

Buddhist landscape is a smile. I cannot conceive how smiles responded
to the brutal darkness that descended upon their beings.
We walk amidst a constant reflection of wars obscenity. Through the
dust of collapsed morality we occasionally glimpse the love pouring
through our veins when we encounter for the first time a new life seeking
our comfort our warmth. A newborn babe lifts a curtain so that we may
see clearly. Sue Guiney recreates that first moment of life as she
encourages Cambodias children to unwrap their gifts. She is renewed as
young eyes open wide, invite knowledge to sweep away fear and mistrust.
Life consistently asserts its heart in a land where not too long ago, an
entire generation was eliminated by the rigid shadow of Pol Pots
minions. It is said that one to three million people were killed or died as
a result of severe abuse in a period of 4 years. That would be
approximately 25% of the population vanishing in a sea of terror. How
does a culture move on from that?
Sue Guiney knows a secret. Well perhaps it isnt quite all that hidden,
but she knows it nevertheless. That is, whatever ails you, whatever
afflicts your psyche and biology, ascending deep into ones soul to create
form somehow always makes you feel better. Perhaps it was built into
Cambodias Buddhist life that allowed its people to come off terrors
tightrope and move into the security of a quotidian meditative life. I
dont know. But move they did. And onto this weathered path, their
smiles returned. Ms. Guiney is an essential ingredient to that smile.
Sue Guineys well-reviewed latest book is entitled Out of the Ruins. It is
a beautifully written novel informed by her experience of Cambodia and
its people and the position of being an ex-patriot in a culture that should
be completely alien, but in many ways is home. The title describes
everything you need to know about a peoples desire to survive. It is a
universal wish to soar above the ruins.

Angkor Wat Temple. Photo by ______. Used by permission.