My friend Toro

Toro drives a cab for a living. Like almost everyone in Cambodia he has an interesting story. I only know the story from the point that he was conscripted to fight the Khmer Rouge. He spent two years living and fighting in the forest, eating whatever he could find. Pythons apparently were regular fodder. Initially the fighting was fierce, but eventually Toro's fellow soldiers and adverseries called an unofficial truce to stop the exhausting violence. Toro finally escaped to Thailand and became a fisherman ("we worked so hard, so hard you wouldn't believe") before returning after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Toro asked me recently why I had so many Jewish colleages where I work. I said that I guessed there may be an element of shared experience - Hitler's extermination of the jews and Pol Pot's extermination of so many Khmers. Toro replied, "Yes, but it makes me so sad that my country did it to itself."

(I asked Toro's permission to write about his story. Like most Khmers he is keen that it is heard)