From the moment I took off from Phnom Penh Airport I began thinking of all the ways in which my efforts fell short. The stakes are so high and it is so difficult to communicate the reality of this problem. I wanted so desperately to impress upon people the human toll of this problem. Joseph Stalin once said, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” These are people not statistics and that is what is so often missed. Upon returning home and editing through all that I shot I soon realized that I had some really great moments, but no narratives. I ended up with visual representations of statistics rather than human stories.
If and when I return I intend to address this oversight. I will be collecting stories, giving names to the numbers. It is how I want to live out my days and I am already looking into ways I will be able to do so. Hopefully I will be able to share with everyone what I have in the works very soon. Still, there is much work to be done.
The following are a few of the moments in which I should have invested more time. I wish I could tell you their names. I wish.
