Snippets from Abroad 006

I once did know this place. It's just that I had chosen to forget:

Walking through this town costs me much more than paying a driver for a vehicle. I realize that I have made that same thought-connection before, more than eight years ago and until now had completely forgot. It all came back to me when I ran into a man named Tok Vanna, selling books from a mobile stall. At first glance he was just another street-vendor, at second glance I realized that he was missing both of his hands. Back in my days with the Armored Engineering Corpse, our hallway had been plastered with pictures of landmines and the horrible injuries caused by them and I realized what had happened to him. He spoke a few words of English and I bought two books from him, one I might actually find useful and one that I probably won't read. The man was amazingly skilled in using his two stumps to give me exact change and such things. He is married and has two kids. He hands out photocopies from a BBC-article about him to his customers. From it I now know his full story. How he was a government-solder when he picked up that landmine in '88. How he still had the presence of thought to try and kill himself with a hand-grenade right after his hands had been ripped off, but one of his fellow soldiers stopped him. How he had been homeless, saved by his mother, became homeless again and then taken to a disabled handicraft-center by an aid-worker. Later he opened his own business because he wanted to support a family, which he now does. I am glad I bought his books. On the next corner is a woman who is missing a leg. A fuse, or maybe a dragon-tooth, I think and give her my Riel which I won't spend anyways. She is grateful because it amounts to about two dollars. While I eat dinner, my emotions overcome me and I start to cry. Even the six-year-old girl selling postcards pities me and for once leaves me alone...