Journeys #HMD2014

The headmistress had got the whole of my class lined up and she said to me what do you want to do when you leave school? My answer was I want to cycle around the world. Twenty years later that dream came true. Packing was kind of an intricate puzzle. The Khmer Rouge forced us out at gunpoint. I started packing. Most of it useless. You can't describe the fear that you could see a certain death in front of you. I was a bit worried about meeting new people but the fact that we are family I think that kind of made me feel a bit more connected to them. I didn't take anything because I had nothing. I could be killed. I didn't know am going but I have to go. It was a very bad journey in my life. We had plenty of time to get hold of the things we needed. We had about 8 months. We took anything that the kids would enjoy or benefit from. I was really looking forward to it That was the last time when I saw my mother. They cut our hair when we came out from the shower nothing was there any more. Only our shoes. The pendant was in my shoe. It took me six months to cycle that 9000 miles. All I could do was hold my head in my hands and shake with tears. I'd lived my dream I carried the dictionary with me. Because you know something, that tie you to your life before. To me they were complete strangers but after about half an hour it was like I had known them forever. It definitely changed me. I would like to go back out there. I don't have mum, I don't have dad, brothers and sisters. But my journey of my life continues, get married, get children. Not to forget but to build a new life again. Now I wear it all the time it is a symbol for me that something impossible happened because not me, not the pendant should be here today.