beggars

the other night etta, emerson and i went out for dinner at a vietnamese restaurant in siem reap, after dinner we decided to go to an outdoor cafe and have a glass of wine, (wine is relatively cheap here--crappy overall, but cheap--about $1.50-$2.50 a glass, and the preferred currency is U.S. dollars--4000 riel to the dollar, although with the decreasing global faith in the dollar it won't be long before the euro is the preferred currency). so we were sitting at this outdoor cafe, it was about 11pm, and this small child--maybe 5 yrs old comes up and kneels and bows to us with his little hands together in namaste. this is not at all unusual, the street children here learn how to bow and extend their hands and say "yum yum" before they learn to walk. anyway we decided to buy him a hotdog at the food cart across the street it took me 5 minutes to get the food and bring it back and by the time i had returned he was dead asleep on the patio floor. we set the hotdog on the table and lifted the boy and set him in an empty chair with us--he never stirred, he was so tired. so we decided to just let the kid sleep, he was so tired, you know?
it was not long before a beggar woman came up to the patio near where we were sitting. she pointed at the boy and said something in khmer. we told her that he was tired, and that we'd bought him a meal so she should let him sleep. she was persistent, we can only assume that she wanted the kid to wake up and move on and ask more tourists for money--after all this was bartime, all the westerners were drunk, softened up, sleeping on the job was not allowed--little kids make more money than adults because they have the cuteness factor, and the vulnerability factor.
we refused to wake the boy up, and as the woman was not permitted onto the patio she sent her other son, a boy of about 3, to wake his brother. this kid was absolutely adorable and delightful. he was stark naked and dirty and he ran over and climbed on top of and pinched his brother. the 5yr old was so tired though that he didn't even stir. so the 3yr old decided to play with me instead. he ran up and climbed into my lap. i let him up and he laughed and bounced and ate some of the hotdog. he basically just turned into a little monkey of a 3 year old. we played airplane. i swung him around and upside town and he squealed and laughed. every few minutes he would climb down from my lap and halfheartedly try to wake his sleeping brother but the kid wouldn't budge. this went on for an hour or so.
it was a little past midnight when we got up to leave, and the 5yr old was still sleeping. i was worried that he was sick or something, there were people all around us getting drunk, there was loud music blaring, his brother was crawling all over him and pinching him, but he still wouldn't budge. so i picked him up and held him. he didn't seem hot with a fever, and in his sleep he stirred and put his arms around my neck. i carried him off the patio and over to the woman who i assume was his mother and i tried to tell her that her son was tired, that he needed sleep and maybe a doctor. she nodded like--"whatever you say white lady" and as soon as i set her son down on the sidewalk she shook him awake and pulled him--disoriented from sleep, down the sidewalk to another cafe to send him to ask for money or "yum yum".

last night as emerson and i were walking back to our guest house after dinner. two little boys ran up to us. the older one grabbed my hand and fell into step with us, all the while chattering excitedly in khmer. the younger boy held the elder's hand--every now and then he'd break away and run ahead and then back to us laughing and shouting. it took us a few moments to realize that this was the same set of brothers.
it was impossible to tell if they remembered us or not. after all, the older boy had fallen asleep pretty much as soon as he met us. the younger boy was only interested in being a monkey, for all he knew or cared i could have been any white girl who had a lap.
after a few moments of walking the inevitable "yum yum" came up. the boys' mother was no where in sight this time, so we took them out to a fast food place and bought them chicken sandwiches and french fries and yogurt drinks that are--incidentally awesome and taste a lot like keifer if any of you have ever had it.
the older kid ate everything that was put in front of him, but the younger kid just ate a few fries, drank his yogurt drink, and climbed around on his chair.

i wonder what happens to these kids when they get older. the adult beggers you see are 2 kinds, women with small infants strapped to them, and men who are missing legs or arms or are otherwise severely disfigured from landmines. i know that many of the little girls graduate to prostitution in their early teens, but what happens to the healthy little boys? begging is a business like any other tourist business, and for the most part it trades in cuteness and/or horror.

this country is so so poor. i don't know a lot about the economy, i do know that the tourist trade been a very positive thing in the cities. you can make up to $20 per day driving a tuk tuk or a motorbike. who knows what you can make as a beggar--more than that if you have a couple of kids you can send out for you. compare this to a factory worker in the textile industry, (pretty much the main industry in cambodia is textile), the people who make your $25 GAP shirt earn an average of $50 a month--and that's for a 7 day work week. that's less than $2 a day.

from what i understand, the cambodian government does little or nothing to alleviate the poverty of it's people. there are no social services provided by the government to ease the suffering of poverty. most of the foundations that are set up to help people escape the cycle of poverty are not-for-profit deals with foreign benefactors who rely on volunteer work to run them. in most of the guesthouses and restaurants geared toward westerners there are flyers posted that ask you to volunteer--even one day makes a difference. the cambodian government--on the other hand, allows foreign investors--such as GAP to exploit the land as well as the labor of the khmer people. buying land in the city is a ridiculously expensive prospect--something like 25 million for a plot large enough to build a small hotel on. you would have to work for a few lifetimes--with no outside expenses--at a clothing factory in order to save enough.
consider this; a ticket to see angkor wat is likely the most expensive thing you will purchase on your stay in cambodia. for one day it will cost you $20, for 3 days it will cost you $40, and for a week it will cost you $60. the money that you pay for your ticket does not go towards the restoration and maintenance of the ruins--a japanese foundation actually has taken it upon themselves. it does not go towards the khmer people who by virtue of inheretance should own the temples--after all, their ancestors built them. actually, the money goes to a private corporation, and who knows where it ends up. it's all pretty depressing.

not to end on a downer--here's one website that's worth checking out, it's the homepage for friends restaurant in phnom penh where street children and their families are able to get education, self-esteem, and a job in the service industry.
click on www.streetfriends.org