I am sitting outside underneath an overhang as the rain falls around me. It is June 2015 and I’m in Ban Lung, Cambodia, a small town in the the north-eastern part of the country known for jungle trekking and less-touristy terrain. I’m alone and loving it. There are less than five other people staying where I’m at and we all have separate cabanas. 

A Chinese man who speaks literally zero English invites me to eat lunch with him and another guest. I know he’s inviting me by the universal sign language of hand to mouth, his smile, and his repetitive pointing to the dining area. I’m not really hungry but I accept anyways – his gesture is too sweet to decline and I’m open to sharing space with others for a bit. 

He doesn’t speak during the meal, but smiles the entire time. The other woman joining is a short, strong Vietnamese-American who has been Google translating conversation with the Chinese man all morning. She is sweet, kind and talkative, and commends me for traveling alone. “I really appreciate how the culture in the United States encourages traveling and independence.”, she shares. She is 60 years old and her Vietnamese mother still frowns upon for traveling solo. It held her back from doing so until she turned 50 and decided every year for the rest of her life she would travel alone somewhere in the world. This was her 10th year, and she chose to visit Cambodia. I embrace the reminder of how truly blessed I am – not only to have the chance to be traveling but to have the freedom. My entire body fills with gratitude for my ancestors, for those who have worked to give me the freedom I so easily take for granted, the family I have that supports my unconventional ways. I share this with her – my appreciation, my gratitude – and she begins to share her story. 

It is 1975 during the fall of Saigon and she is living in the city with her family. Her parents decide, like thousands of others, to risk their lives and flee. They decide they will send the children first, the parents and grandparents following after. She is 17 years old and the oldest of four – her three younger siblings 12, 10 and 9 years old. The family musters up $10,000 – $2,500 per child – to give to a family friend who promises to take the four kids safely across the sea. At a stop in Guam the family friend who’d been paid and entrusted to care for the children abandons them and leaves without notice overnight.

Red Cross picks the four children up and takes them to begin a new life in an orphanage camp. She is moved to Camp Pendleton in California into a 10 zone refugee camp where she spends the next six months with no word or knowledge of how the rest of her family is, where they are, or if they are even alive.