SOMETIMES when it rains in America, 26-year-old Darwin Pan remembers the deaths he saw and the horrors he survived as a child in Cambodia. ''But I'm not a child anymore and I have to let go and move on and live my life as an adult even though the past was horrifying, torturous to a certain extent,'' he said. Pan is one of many American Cambodians who recently returned to their roots through CANDO, a non-governmental organisation, to use their skills to rebuild the battered country. CANDO stands for Cambodian American National Development Organisation. According to CANDO's director Thida Khus, the programme acted as a healing process for its members as well as rebuilding the country. ''Every Cambodian left the country with a big scar, feeling guilty for surviving and responsible for what had happened. ''We suffer from emotional problems. ''This (CANDO) is the first opportunity for us to exercise that responsibility. It is a healing process, helping us as much as we are helping them. ''Most Cambodians in America lived and planned their careers around acquiring skills which could be used to help Cambodia,'' she said, adding that the group had no problems recruiting people. ''When I arrived in America, I felt that I was given a second life because I survived the Khmer Rouge,'' said Pan. Pan resettled in America where he graduated from Hayward California State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and business administration. In Cambodia, he is working as a counsellor for young people aged from 15 to 22, many of them orphans. This year, 25 people are in Cambodia out of a total of 1,700 who signed up as CANDO volunteers. Aid workers are contracted for one year and paid US$325 (HK$2,500) a month.
