SHADES OF HUMAN LIFE #3 – PATTICA SAN – FROM DARKNESS TOWARD THE LIGHT
I met Pattica during my journey through Cambodia while staying with Sarom at Pomelo Travel Outpost Cambodia in Siem Reap — one of the previous guests of the “Shades of Human Life” series.
You can read Sarom’s story HERE.
Our meeting was completely unexpected.
Pattica is the global coordinator of the Pomelo Travel Outpost network and happened to be visiting Sarom during my stay.
We introduced ourselves and started talking.
One hour turned into another.
And then another.
We connected instantly.
To my surprise, he offered to show me some hidden places around Siem Reap.
For free.
Simply because he wanted to.
And he did.
For nearly two full days we traveled together, talked, shared stories, and got to know each other.
That was when I learned about his past.
A childhood spent in an orphanage.
Being abandoned and rejected.
Loneliness.
Discrimination because of the color of his skin.
A constant struggle for education and a better future.
Yet somehow, none of those experiences turned him into a bitter man.
Instead, they made him stronger.
Today, he wants to become a role model for other orphans.
He wants to help people.
He wants to build the loving family he never had.
When I asked him if he would like to share his story as part of the “Shades of Human Life” series, he agreed without hesitation.
As always, I am publishing his answers exactly as I received them.
Without editing.
Without polishing.
Without changing his words.
Because authenticity often carries the deepest truth.
(Here you can insert the original English Q&A exactly as received — unchanged.)
PATTICA’S ANSWERS
CHILDHOOD
1. What is your earliest memory?
• I remember that I was different than most people and that I liked to dance.
2. What did you miss the most as a child?
• Most of us just got out of the wars, so a lot of people were sincere and respectful, and they were quick to help each other even tho we were poor.
3. What did your parents teach you — consciously or unconsciously?
• Unfortunately, I did not have a parent because I am an orphan, but I learn a lot from others, especially from the people in my orphanage.
4. When did you first feel alone?
• When I was abundaned my family to other families again and again.
IDENTITY
5. Who did you think you would become when you were a child?
• I want to become a black painter because he was cool, rich, kind, and accountable to the people around him.
6. At what moment did your life take an unexpected turn?
• When I decided to be a Christian and be baptized into the LDS church.
7. What part of yourself did you once struggle to accept?
• That I am blacker than most people in my country because I am a half Afrincan and half Asian.
8. What are you grateful to yourself for today?
• I am different from others of my people because I am self-reliant and learned, and I could meet a lot of good people who offer me love and kindness more than my family and my orphanage could give me.
PAIN
9. What was the hardest decision you’ve ever made?
• I chose to continue to finish my high school and become educated, rather than going to help my family, who needed me to help them.
10. Who have you lost, and how did that change you?
• I lost all of my family members because they wanted me to be more educated than them. I learned that I have to be strong and courageous for my life and future because I am the only one who can make my future real and come true.
11. Was there a moment when you wanted to give up?
• When I did not get any help from my orphanage, or when I got bullied by them because they only cared about other kids who were not real orphans and who had rich parents to help them.
12. What hurt you the most — and what did it teach you?
• Being black (a half African), while the country people want me to be white or give value to lighter skin. I learned how to communicate better and how to protect myself and others like me.
RELATIONSHIPS
13. What does love mean to you?
• Still figuring it out, because I did not grow up with it. But if I have to say it is care and kindness and royal to one another.
14. Who truly saw you for who you are?
• My God-sister from America, because he knew me and told me that I was good and lovable. She saw me supports and gave me advice that is very beneficial to my life and my future.
15. What kind of relationship patterns do you notice in your life?
• I am not sure.
16. What scares you about intimacy?
• The lack of loyalty and not being deep or profound.
THE JOURNEY
17. Why are you here — in this place, at this moment of your life?
• Because I have dreams and I want to live a better life than what my family gives me and did not give me. I want to be a good example for other orphans to follow and to have hope of a good life.
18. What are you searching for?
• A good and happy family for my children and me. Joy, faith in God, and wealth that give enough to make my family learn and grow.
19. What are you running from?
• Fake people and those who abused me, and those who use wealth to manipulate others for their own gains.
20. Do you feel you are still “on the way” — or already “arrived”?
• Yes, I have enough for me and my family to come. But I am not done yet because I want to keep going until I cannot breathe anymore for the good of my people, especially for parentless children.
TRUTH
21. What do you hide from the world?
• Many things, but I do not want to talk about it because I have already given it up or repented from it.
22. Is there something you have never told anyone?
• Yes, but I do not need to tell it to others because human has secrets, and secrets give you strength to go on. Because mostly people don’t care anyway.
23. What is the hardest truth about yourself?
• I do not know.
24. What is your greatest strength?
• Righteousness, Discipline, Bravery, a quick learner, wisdom, and Jesus Christ.
MEANING
25. What gives your life meaning?
• Service to others, believing in God, and having dreams and hope for the betterment of my life.
26. What do you believe in?
• God, Jesus Christ, that he will give me a good family to build my own family, not like the broken one that I did not grow up in.
27. How would you like to be remembered?
• A strong man who depends on his own strength to succeed. And a man of God.
28. What would you say to your younger self?
• Do not be afraid of hard work, and do not spend time loving those who do not give back. Do not care much and just do more.
29. What do you need most right now?
• A good woman and love, really family.
30. One sentence that summarizes your life.
• Out of the darkness, I came the furthest, among the hardest survivors.
ENDING
Some people you meet while traveling and eventually their faces fade from memory.
Others stay with you forever.
Pattica is one of those people.
His story is not about easy success.
It is the story of a man who spent much of his life being told he was different.
Who was rejected by the very people from whom he needed love the most.
Who often had to fight alone.
Yet he never stopped believing.
Never stopped dreaming.
Never stopped caring about others.
What moved me the most is that after everything he has experienced, his greatest dream is not wealth or fame.
It is family.
Love.
Belonging.
The very things he spent much of his life searching for.
Perhaps that is why he values them more deeply than most people.
Because sometimes the greatest strength is not how many times we win.
It is the ability to keep believing in tomorrow after everything life has put us through.
And Pattica still believes.
