Part 1: Learning English and new culture
Richard was the first Cambodian who stepped in Colorado in 1972 after studying English language at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He was accepted to continue his Master Degree at School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. With the help of his adviser Dr. Charles. Frush, Richard got a contract with a mining company Gecamines in Zaire. He left Colorado in December 1974 (Chapter 2).
Richard decided to move back to Colorado after working four years and a half in Zaire. We could not go back to Cambodia at that time because of the Khmer Rouge regime.
After our vacation in Paris, France, we flew to Denver, Colorado on June 12, 1979. We stayed at Richard’s landlord’s house in Golden for a week, then we moved to our house in Westminster. We bought this house during our first vacation in Denver in February 1977. (Chapter 4.1)
When we arrived in Denver, we learned that many Cambodian refugees were settled there. They were granted to come to Denver, Colorado at the beginning of 1979 from American Embassy at the refugee camp in Thailand. At that time, the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown in 1979 by a group of invading Vietnamese troops and a group of Cambodians.
We applied for a political Asylum at the Immigration Office in Denver. With the intervention of Sister Mary Nelle Gage from Lutheran Organization and a letter from the governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm, emphasizing that we did not seek for any financial assistance from the government, we were granted the Asylum.
Richard was able to communicate in English with people in Denver. Myself and the children did not speak English, but only spoke French. At home, I could not answer the phone because of the language barrier. I felt so handicapped.
I enrolled to learn English at Spring International School located on Lowell Boulevard across Regis College in Westminster, Colorado. The tuition was quite expensive for this private school. This school offered four levels of intensive English courses for foreign students who came from Asia, South America, Europe, etc… to continue their academic study in the university in America.
I began studying English from level 1 to level 4 consecutively, but skipped level 3 and jumped to English level 4 class. One project of the last class was that each student were required to do a presentation with any topic of their choice. The teacher invited a group of guests that were not the school personnels to listen to the presentation. My topic was genocide in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era. At that time, people were not much aware of Asian culture and its history. I introduced Cambodia to the audience with a map of Southeast Asia with three countries: Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos that was called “Indochina”. It was the first time that people heard about this tragic event in Cambodia. They were so interested and emotional while listening to what I described. My English was not fluent at that time and I didn’t know how much they understood me, but a few people people had teared eyes.
As I completed my four English courses, I must take TOEFL test (Test of English as a Foreign Language). TOEFL was a standardized test to measure the English language ability of non native speakers wishing to enroll in English-speaker universities. My test scores were good enough for me to enroll at Metro State College in Denver. Great things that I brought all my diplomas from Cambodia with me when I left Cambodia on March 23, 1975 (chapter 3). This helped the college to evaluate my credentials and convert the credits to an equivalent of a degree in the United States. I needed to study for more courses to meet the required credits.
My advisor at Metro State College was Dr. Elizabeth Friot. In addition, I studied more courses in education to meet the requirement of obtaining a teaching Certificate. More tests were administered to me in reading, writing, mathematics, and speaking. I was oriented to get teaching certificate in Science and secondary in French. I had to take a test to measure my proficiency in the French language at University of Colorado Boulder (CU). I passed all the tests and was able to apply for a Colorado Teaching Certificate.
At first, It was so hard for me to study all these courses as my English was quite limited. The hard part of the English language was speaking skill. I wished they had a conversation class that I could enroll. However, as I resided in the English speaking country, no need to have speaking class. I could speak to people in English everyday.
For the courses In Metro State College, It took me more hours to read and understood each chapter of the books. My head was so heavy and almost exploded as my brain was overwhelmed to hold new words and vocabularies. For the native English speakers, they had no problem understanding the topic. For me I needed to check new vocabularies first and then tried to understand each paragraph of the chapter. It never crossed my mind to quit, I told myself that if people could do it, I could too. It was just a matter of time that I would reach my goal. I came to America from so far and fought to survive in different countries, I would not stop there. I pursued my dream to have a good life for my family in America. My personal mentra was: “I could do it. I could make it”.
I studied at Metro State College for two semesters and met all the required courses. I did my student teaching at Oberon middle school in Arvada, Jefferson County School District, for six weeks. It was a tough challenge to teach for the first time in front of the American students. What a big relieve to hear that the students liked my teaching. I met all the requirements and got my first teaching certificate from Colorado Department of Education in September, 1980.
As we arrived in Denver in June 1979, it was summer vacation for all schools. We enrolled Podaly and Porendy during the summer in a private school near our house to learn English.
In September 1979, Porendy went to Kindergarten class in the morning in a public school in Westminster. Podaly went to second grade class at Mesa Elementary school in Westminster, Adam County School District 50. It was hard for both of them to start school as they didn’t speak English. The first day, I took Podaly to school, I told her teacher that she didn’t speak English, but only French. She needed extra time to learn English language with ESL program (English As a Second Language) beside her academic study in a regular class.
After the first semester, the kids spoke English fluently and forgot most of French language as they did not have anyone to practice French with. At home, we communicated in Khmer, but as time passed by, the kids spoke more English and less Khmer at home. I wanted to preserve Khmer language at home, but felt like it would hold back the kids in learning English. So we mixed English and Khmer language communicating at home that only us could understand. We also incorporated the three cultures : Cambodian, French, and American in our home.
The kids learned extra English during summer vacation. The teachers gave lots of books for them to read at home. We were quite strict with the kids. They went to bed at 8:00pm and did not watch much TV in the evening. They watched some specific TV programs on the weekend. For us, our goal was that the kids worked well in school. We were so lucky that both of our kids understood so well that school was priority number one in our family and they worked hard to help reaching our goal.
In second grade, Podaly was placed in the lower reading group in class. Then the following years she was moved to a higher reading group. At the beginning of 5th grade, she was placed in the top reading group in her class. Her writing, reading, listening, and speaking were not an issue anymore. Her academic grade was excellent.
As Porendy began with Kindergarten class at young age, there was no problem for him. He had a good background in French language as he went to school in Zaire at age three and continued until we came to the States. He learned how to write and read like everyone else in the classroom, but needed to work extra time in learning more vocabularies with ESL program. When he finished first grade, he did quite well. He moved to second grade the following year. His academic grade was excellent. No problem with English language.
There were not many jobs in mining field offered In Colorado at that time. But Richard was lucky and was hired as an engineer in an Uranium Mine company in Golden, Colorado in February 1980. At that time, I was studied at Metro State College to obtain my teaching license.
Richard was involved with Cambodian Community in Denver. There were about 1,500 Cambodians living in the suburbs of Denver. There were not many educated Cambodians in Denver at that time. Richard was elected as the president of Colorado Cambodian Association. We helped out the new comers who came to settle in Colorado from the refugee camp. The association began to introduce Cambodian culture to American community. We celebrated first Khmer New Year in Colorado with the presentation of Khmer traditional dances. Cambodian young girls and boys were trained for many months to perform those dances. We also presented Cambodian foods and culture as well.
We also exchanged and shared ideas with many Cambodian Associations in other States. We learned that Prince Norodom Sihanouk who was the Head of Cambodia, had exiled in Bejing, China since January 1970. It happened before the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1970. He wanted to come to America to meet with Cambodian people. We invited the prince to come to Denver to make a presentation to American community about the tragedy of Cambodia with the killing of 2 1/2 millions of innocent lives of Khmer people.
We received prince Sihanouk and his wife Monique at our house in Westminster for two nights, March 1 and March 2, 1980. The prince entourage who came with the prince stayed with other Cambodian families. We did not prepare lunch or dinner at our house as we wanted the house free of smell. We asked a Cambodian family to make Phnom Penh noodle soup for lunch and other dishes for dinner. They brought everything to our house before lunch and before dinner.
In the morning some Cambodians were invited to our house to meet with the prince. For protocols, we placed only the prince and princess at each end of the table for lunch and dinner. But the prince insisted that our family with the two kids should be with him and the princess during lunch and dinner. So we had six people at the table having lunch with the prince. In the evening, the prince went to do his presentation at Women College in Denver.
Note about Norodom Sihanouk
Sihanouk was head of State of Cambodia numerous times.
- 1941: Crowned as King of Cambodia
- 1955: Abdicated and was succeeded by his father
- 1955-1960: Primer Minister Suramarit
- 1960-1970: Declared himself Head of State in 1960
- 1970: Ousted by a Cambodian Coup, fled to China and North Korea, and exiled until 1975
- January 1976: Returned to Cambodia 1976- 1978: Head of Khmer Rouge government, but kept under arrest in the royal palace
- 1979: allowed to fly to Beijing, China and sought asylum in China
- 1979-1991: Asylum in China
- 1991: Returned to Cambodia in November
- 1993: Reinstated as King of Cambodia
- 2004: Abdicated once again
- 2012: Died of heart attack on October 15.
At the time we received the prince at our house, we didn’t know that he returned to Cambodia in 1976 and was head of the Khmer Rouge government until the fall of the regime in 1979 (No news leaked out from Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979).
We learned that Prince Sihanouk supported the “Vietcong”, the Vietnamese guérillas, and allowed them to hide at the border of Cambodia and Vietnam since the mid 1960’s.
Vietnamese leaders, especially Ho Chi Minh, always wanted to take over Cambodia and put it under their control.
Sihanouk fell into this trap and let the Vietcong infiltrated inside of Cambodia territory, especially hiding in the jungles in the mid 1960’s. At that same period, many Cambodian intellectuals who were chased by Sihanouk government because of the political differences. They were considered as the party of the communists. They hid in the jungle and were afraid that Sihanouk would execute them if they were caught. More people entered the jungle and joined them. With the help of the Vietcong, they formed the Khmer Rouge young soldiers and began to have their own government within the jungle. The tragic genocide of Cambodia began in April 1975 when the Khmer Rouge entered the capital. (Chapter 4, part 2).
We would NOT invite prince Sihanouk and his wife to Denver in March 1980 if we knew about his involvement with the Khmer Rouge. We would hold him among other leaders responsible for the loss of many innocent lives.
From January 1979, more Cambodian refugees came to Denver from the camp. We sent many flyers to the office of the refugees camp in Thailand and asked them to post our flyers on the board. We were looking for our family, relatives and friends who arrived in the camp and asked them to contact us. We received many letters from Thailand, but none of them were related to us.
Even we learned sad news from people in Paris about Richard’s family (chapter 4.2), we prayed and kept hope that we might get some good news from his family. In February 1981, we received a letter from Richard’ sister (Marilyn) informing us that she arrived to the camp with her daughter, but did not mention any other family members. She came to the camp with a Cambodian family from her hometown. We sponsored her and the family that came with her. They came to Denver with the assistance of the Red Cross Organization in February 1981.
We also sponsored another family that was my second cousin’s family. With the assistance of a church in Arvada, this family came to Denver in 1982.
We learned more of the loss of Richard’s family from his sister and how she could survive and managed to come to the refugee camp with her daughter. They were the only survivors. His father, mother, and other siblings all died and we did not know exactly where their lives were ended. In April 16, 1975 his sister was not with her parents; she went to her in-laws for her husband’s funeral (chapter 4, part 2). No news from his uncles, aunts, and cousins. We assumed that they could not survive the Khmer Rouge regime. Overall, about 100 people in Richard’s family including uncles, aunts, cousins etc… were deceased during that time.
Culture and holidays in the new country.
When we came to Denver in July 1979, it was summer time. The weather was nice and warm like in Cambodia and Zaire. I learned new things about the four seasons and the three months of each season and the daylight savings with setting the clock back in the Fall and forward in the Spring. It happened to me once when I went to school on Monday morning after the weekend of Fall daylight saving. The parking lot was empty. When I entered the school building, I did not see any students nor the teachers in there except the janitor who swept the floor. I thought that the school was closed for some reasons that I didn’t know. I asked the custodian why it was so quiet. He told me about the daylight saving. Darn it.
In October, it looked so beautiful with the changing of the color of the leaves and their falling off the trees.
In November, the weather turned in cooler and then cold. I was so amazed to see the first snow flakes falling from the sky, it was so beautiful. On the contrary, on the gloomy days and when the sky turned gray, and when looking at the skeleton trees with no leaves, I felt sad, melancholic and nostalgic of Cambodia.
In the Spring, I was happy to see the trees foliated and the flowers blooming. Everything turned green.
We learned about holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas etc… that we didn’t have in Cambodia. We added some holidays to our family. The kids had fun during these holidays.
I learned how to make Thanksgiving dinner from my next door neighbor. She came to our house and taught me how to bake turkey and make some side dishes. We like one of her side dish called “Grandma Salad” that consisted of cool whip, cottage cheese, jello lime, walnuts, and crushed pineapple.
Later in the mid 1983’s, we found two of Richard’s classmates from Cambodia who came to work in Colorado. We invited his friends and their family to spend Thanksgiving dinner and stayed overnight at our house. One family came from Colorado Springs and the other family was from Fort Collins. We took turns to meet at Christmas Day and New Year Day. We had a great time during the holidays and enjoyed our friends’ company.
The kids adapted and coped nicely with the new culture.
Gifts with Cambodian children
Christmas was a good holiday as we bought many gifts to the children. During this holiday, it reflected me about Cambodian children who did not have this privilege. As I remembered during my childhood, the Cambodian children did not receive money gift. However, the kids with Chinese background would receive red envelopes with money called “Ang Pao” from parents and relatives during the Chinese New Year.
For my family, as my father was Chinese (chapter 1), we celebrated Chinese New Year. We received red envelopes every year. In the evening of the Chinese New Year’s Eve, my father had red envelopes ready to give to the children. He called each of us by our age from the oldest to the youngest to his desk one by one and handed the red envelope to us. The money was also given by the age. The older you were, the bigger amount of money you would receive.
My father gave me the money, not only at the new year, but also at other times. I didn’t want to ask money from my father every morning before going to school. We never had cafeterias in school. There were some stands selling noodle or rice for breakfast in the morning. We returned home at lunch time and went back to school at 2:30pm. I requested a monthly allowance since I was in 5th grade. He liked my idea and agreed to it. He set my monthly allowance to 500 Riels (Cambodian money) which was an equivalent of 15 US dollars. At that time, the elementary school teacher’ salary was about 3,000 Riels.
He also gave me extra money of 500 Riels each time I received an Award Certificate from school. After showing him my certificate, I placed it on his big wood desk with glass top on it. My father smiled each time I placed the certificates under the glass top. I was so happy to see my father smile.
After the passing of my mother in 1955, my father stayed widowed for so long. He never got remarried as he was afraid that the step mother wouldn’t get along with the children. I could see that he felt emptiness even there were many kids in the house. He didn’t have time to have conversation with us as we was so busy with his business during the day. I felt so sorry for my father and I wanted to see his smile more often, but didn’t know how. None of the kids came talking to him as they were afraid of him. After the loss of our mother, each kid stayed with the nanny around the clock (chapter 1). I was not afraid of my father as he was so gentle and nice when I approached him. I talked to him time to time, but not so often as I needed to study in the evening.
He passed away in 1995 in Paris, France at the age of 90.
Part 2
Employment and Cirizenship
After obtaining my teaching certificate, I began to look for a teaching job, but it was hard to find. I worked as a substitute teacher for Jefferson School District for about one year. It was a hard job that I did not like because it was not a steady job, and it went on day by day basis.
In September 1982, I got two part-time jobs as a tutor at Arvada high school in the morning and at Lakewood high school in the afternoon. I was working closely with the classroom teacher to help students with limited English. Most of the students were Vietnamese. We had a few Cambodian students in Arvada high school.
As I could speak five languages: fluent in Khmer and French, proficient in Vietnamese, Chinese (Teochew dialect), and English, I was hired in August 1983 as a part time French teacher working for Adams County School District 50 in Westminster. I began my teaching job at a vocational school, Career Enrichment Park (CEP) in Westminster. There were two French teachers at CEP at that time.
I taught two classes of French at CEP in the morning, then went to an elementary school in Adams county district 14 in Commerce City working as a tutor helping the kids learning English in ESL (English as a Second Language) program in the afternoon.
In the following school year 1984, the Administration decided to move the Foreign language department from CEP to the two high schools in the district. I got a new contract teaching French full time at Ranum high school. The other teacher moved to Westminster high school.
There were three languages that were offered in the district: French, Spanish, and German. I was the only French teacher at Ranum high school for a long time. The enrollment of foreign language was increased towards mid 1990’s and an additional part time French teacher was hired.
I had a hard time to cope with American school during my first year. A lot of challenge to face with American students. Thanks god that the majority of students were well behaved. It was a different school system and everything was new to me.
I worked very hard to cope with the new culture and school system. How many times did I cry because of the frustration and the dealing with tough parents who sometimes gave me a hard time. I was so grateful that most of the students did not give much trouble.
My English was proficient, but not fluent and it was hard for the students to understand me with my Cambodian- French accent. At the beginning of the school year, I had a letter for the students to sign. It was stated that if they didn’t understand my English, they should ask me to repeat again. Fortunately that I taught French, so they didn’t complain much about my English.
The lunch system was completely new to me. In Cambodia, there was no lunch offered at school. Everyone went home for lunch. Morning classes 7:00am to 12:00pm; lunch 12:00pm-2:30pm; and afternoon classes 2:30pm-5:30pm. It took me a long time to cope with food from cafeteria because I was not used to American food. I had lunch in Ranum cafeteria for one semester, then I brought my own lunch afterwards. I sat at the lunch table with other teachers in the teacher lounge. I was not comfortable to speak I only listened to the other teachers talking. They always had stories to tell. My listening skill was excellent as I understood new things day after day. I learned a lot from the school meeting that was set once after school on Mondays. I wanted to express my ideas, but English was a barrier for me. I wished that the meeting was in French or Khmer, it wouldn’t be a problem.
As years passed by, I learned new things and ideas everyday from my work place and how the school tackled each situation differently. Dealing with the students and their parents was a difficult task. But teaching job became much easier as I understood the system and the students better. I was ready to go to school every morning and I loved my job. My attendance was perfect, no absence from school for my first year teaching at CEP.
There was not much discipline problem in the classroom. But sometimes a few students misbehaved, but no major issues.
I would say in my teaching career at Ranum for 18 years, I only had two discipline problems and referred the students to the principal. The first incident was a misbehaved female student whom I kicked out of the class went to the parking lot during the recess, scratched my car with her key and sprayed some bad words on it. She was removed to another class and she was not allowed to enroll in my class for the next school year.
The second incident was a student threatened me that he was a mafia member and he could kill anyone easily. I referred him to the principal. His parents were called in to discuss about this issue with the principal and myself. The parents apologized for it and the students said he was just joking. He was expelled from my class. Couple weeks later, when we crossed each other in the hall, he still smiled at me.I was so relieved that he was not mad at me.
In our classroom, students had lots of activities in the classroom which made learning French fun. I also introduced some Asian culture in my classroom which the students were so interested. I introduced Khmer alphabets with 33 consonants and 23 vowels to the class. I had them write “I Love You” in French, Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc… on their Valentine card with their name in Khmer. I did this activity only on Valentine’s Day. The students also loved to listen to the stories of Cambodia and its tragedy and other things related to Cambodia culture.
I also incorporated French and Cambodian foods with Home Economic department. The students learned how to make French crêpes and Cambodian egg rolls in the kitchen of Home Ec class.
I had good and bad times during my teaching at Ranum, but enjoyed teaching and loved my job and my students.
I taught at Ranum high school in the same classroom for eighteen years and was retired in 2001.
Richard was working at uranium mine in Golden for two years. Then he got a job offer at a mining consulting company and moved to work for this company for two years. One year later, this company went bankrupt. Richard was out of job. He was looking for a new job in mining, but no luck as the mining industry was so bad.
Since we moved to Denver in 1979, I went to school and did not work for a couple years. Richard was the sole person who worked at that time. We depended on his income to run the household. As years passed by, we used most of our saving money from Zaire to pay my school tuition, house mortgage and household expenses etc… Our family was struggled financially for a while. At one point, I was working at four jobs: teaching French at CEP in the morning, tutoring English in an elementary school in the afternoon, private tutoring Math to a young boy at his home twice a week, and working part time as cashier at Kmart in the evening and on some weekend. Life was hard, but I kept staying positive and praying for a better life for our family. Richard and I stressed out so much during that period. This was the worst chapter of our life in America. I felt so uncertain of our future. Was America the land of opportunity as people said? Not so positive about it.
Fortunately, Richard got a job offer as a project engineer in a small company IGSS in Aurora, Colorado in 1984. They had an office in Aurora, but the main company was in Santa Fe. Richard worked weekdays in Santa Fe and came home on the weekend. We called Richard “weekend husband” as he only came home on the weekend. Sometimes he traveled to San Francisco and other states. No steady place to stay and he ended up in the hotels most of the time.
The company got a project in Eureka, California. Richard was the engineer in charge of building a small tunnel. He stayed and worked in Eureka for a while until he completed the project.
While working at IGSS, Richard wanted to go back to work in Africa because he felt that this company was not stable and wouldn’t last long. The mining industry went downhill and it was very difficult to get a job. He was thinking to get a job in Africa, but the problem was he did not have a travel document or a passport to travel there. He put this idea aside.
At that time in order to get a passport, we had to follow the procedure with Immigration and Naturalization Office. First, he must apply for a green card to become a U.S. Permanent Resident. The requirement was to reside in the U.S. for two years. We got our green cards in 1982.
Next step was to become a citizen of America and had to wait for three more years to apply for naturalization. The requirement for obtaining the US citizenship was to reside and live in the States for five years consecutively without any interruption. We did not travel overseas and waited for five years (1979-1984). We also studied US history and other subjects from a booklet that was given to people before going for an interview with Immigration Office.
We applied for Naturalization and got an interview with an Immigration Naturalization Officer in Denver in 1984. What a coincidence that we got the same officer who interviewed us for our Green Card. The oral test was to recite the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Richard and I answered the Amendments alternatively and we did it all right. More questions were about the Congress and Senate. We passed the oral test and we were asked to wait for the Immigration Office to contact us for the Naturalization.
After six months of waiting period, we were sworn in to become US Citizens in August 16, 1985.
On that day, our names were changed by decree of court to Richard Ung and Linda Ung as part of the Naturalization. The reason we changed our name was that people never pronounced our name right. For me, people couldn’t guess my gender. A few times, I got a letter addressed to me as a mister. For Richard, he didn’t like his name given by his parents since he was a young boy. He felt very uncomfortable with his name. At young age he had a complexe with his name and stayed withdrawn from people for a long time.
The children wanted to keep their names and we respected their decision. As Richard hated his name given by his parents, he was thinking of giving good names to our kids. Our children names are so unique. It was a combination of “Po” combined with “Daly” for a girl name to “Podaly” for our daughter. “Po” combined with “rendy” for a boy name to “Porendy”for our son.
“Po” in Khmer “ពោធិ” derived from a Banyan tree that has a huge shade and in Buddhism it is a symbol of longevity. This tree is considered sacred. There are a few Banyan trees in the surrounding of Angkor Wat in Seam Reap and some near the other temples.
After we got our citizenship, we were able to travel overseas with our new passports. I went to visit my family in Paris in the summer of 1986 after seven years not seeing them. I stayed there for a month. Since then, I went to France every summer to visit my father, except the summer of 1988.
Richard’s company sent him to China for business meeting in July 1988. He asked the company if I could go with him on this trip. His boss approved his request. The company paid air tickets and hotel accommodations for both of us and gave us extra cash to take along.
We also visited Hong Kong and other provinces in China. We also went to Japan before heading back to Colorado.
While working at IGSS, Richard applied for a job in Africa. He got a contract with a Copper Mines company in Zambia on April 30, 1990. He was hired as a Senior Mine Planning Engineer. He resigned from IGSS and moved to Zambia in May 1990. Because of his new job, we lived apart for one year until May 1991.
He came home every six months for a month of vacation. It was hard for me to live far away from Richard, but there was no other alternative. The children did not have much time to spend with their father as he was away most of the time because of the job.
In May 1991, I had a surgery, hysterectomy. Richard resigned and came back to Denver to take care of me. I stayed home during the summer and went back to work in September 1991.
While staying with me during my surgery, Richard always wanted to work for Gécamines in Zaire, the company that he used to work for 1975-1979. With the help of a friend in Zaire, Richard was lucky that he got a contract from Gécamines and went to work there for a second time in October 1991.
He worked in Lubumbashi for five years from 1991 to 1996. Richard came home every six months for vacation. We lived apart again for another five years. We sacrificed our marriage life staying apart for so long because of a better future for our children. I believed this was our destiny to work hard and fight to survive in America.
Our children excelled in school. Podaly graduated from Westminster high school as a valedictorian in June 1989. She was accepted at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Porendy graduated with honor from Ranum high school in 1992. He got accepted at Babson College in Wellesley which was not too far from the school where Podaly attended. Both of our children attended colleges in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. While Porendy was a freshman at Babson College, Podaly was a senior at Wellesley College. She graduated from college in May 1993. Porendy graduated from Babson in May 1996.
I was home alone in Denver while children attended college. During that time. I felt emptiness everyday when I returned home from school. I cried every night for many year as I missed my family so much. I was so distressed especially on the weekend.
At one point, our family were in four different continents. Richard was in Zaire, Africa. Podaly was studying in Ireland, Europe, Porendy was in Singapore, Asia, studying Chinese for one semester, and I was in Denver, U.S.A.
In December 1994, Richard wanted to visit his friends in Cambodia during his vacation time. He stopped by in Paris for a couple days and continued his trip to Cambodia. It was the first time that Richard visited Cambodia after 26 years living abroad. (Chapter 2: he left Cambodia in January 1971). He spent ten days there.
As Richard planned to go to Cambodia during his vacation and didn’t have time to come to Denver, I flew to Paris to meet with him. Upon his return to Paris, Richard was sick with a flu. I spent ten days in Paris taking care of Richard. The vacation time was ended. Richard needed to return to work in Zaire, but he was so sick that he could not fly back to Zaire. Richard called Gécamines headquarter in Bruxelles, Belgium, requesting for an extension of one week.
My vacation time was almost over and I had to return to Denver. I extended my stay in Paris for another week to take care of Richard. I called the school and requested a substitute for five days and sent one week lesson plan to school via fax from the post office in Paris. The substitute was thrilled to receive a lesson plan from Paris.
In 1996, his friend from Cambodia contacted Richard that the government needed a mining engineer from overseas to help in the Mining Department. Richard’s experience working in different countries fit well with the job description.
His friend set an interview for Richard to meet with the primer Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen. At that interview, the primer minister was pleased and wanted to have Richard working for him .He was appointed Richard as his advisor to work in the Mining Department.
Richard was willing to help Cambodia and accepted the job offer from Cambodian government. He did not want to quit Gecamines abruptly, he applied for a leave of absence for a period of six months without interruption of his contact. Gécamines granted his request.
Another chapter for Richard working for the first time in “new” Cambodia. I couldn’t join Richard at that time as I needed to work for a couple more years until my retirement. WHY living apart again? How many years? So uncertain. That was our destiny I believed.