A few words...OK, not so few words

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A few words about beggars:

One obvious difference between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh is the prevalence of beggars. Siem Reap has some beggars, but very few by comparison. (I hear it was much more common even a few years ago, but I neglected to ask why that has changed. Siem Reap Province is the poorest province in the country, so it’s not as if the poverty problem there has been solved.) Phnom Penh has many more beggars who are much more obvious in public places. Tonight as Jaz and I walked along the riverfront in search of a restaurant, on every block we saw women with babies or toddlers camped out in the middle of the sidewalk in front of hotels, restaurants, banks, and other businesses. Sometimes the babies were asleep on mats or empty rice bags on the sidewalk, sometimes they were in their mother’s arms. One of the babies had an obvious case of hydrocephalus, with a hugely swollen head. All of them were dirty and dressed in what looked like more like rags than clothing. As we debated whether to take a tuktuk or walk back to our guesthouse after dinner, I was tempted to take a tuktuk just to avoid walking past one after another of these sad little scenes.

How and when and to whom to give money is a constant struggle for me. I have some general rules that I’ve developed based on information from various sources, but I can’t say I always follow them consistently. Based on common advice, I try not to give money to children - the logic is that if children can make money begging in the streets, their parents are less likely than ever to send them to school. There are an infinite number of charities one can contribute to that work to improve the lives of children in this country, and the money is likely better spent that way.

On the other hand, there is little available in the way of help for old people (no social security or other safety net) and if an old woman has no children to care for her, she few if any options, so I commonly give a small amount to old women. I also keep in mind that anyone over a certain age survived the Khmer Rouge regime and endured horrors I will never understand, and therefore deserves some support to get by during their remaining years.

Land mine victims are another category - many in Siem Reap work by selling books and some play traditional Khmer music outside the Night Market, and I’ve bought books and regularly put money in the hat of the musicians. I also tend to give to those who just ask for a handout, but not if they’re children, for the same reason mentioned above.

I’m happy to give something to street performers everywhere - the musicians, the fire swallowers, the magicians, the little kids along the riverfront this evening who showed off their rudimentary hip-hop dance moves. Anyone who entertains me deserves some compensation and some reward for their efforts. I suppose this doesn’t fall into the category of begging, but because people have different attitudes about giving to street performers, I thought it worth mentioning.

And women begging with children in their arms fall into a whole category that I can’t decide what to do about. Does giving to them encourage them to continue begging rather than seek an alternative? Is there any alternative? I don’t know the answer, so I don’t know how to respond. They present the most common dilemma here in Phnom Penh in terms of their sheer numbers, and until I know whether it does more harm than good, I usually choose not to give.

Without getting too much deeper into the issue, I will point out that I don’t give to people on the street at home. It’s not uncommon to see a panhandler or two on Church Street, most commonly (but not always) older men. I don’t give to them, because I know that there are a number of resources available to them if they choose to use them. I’m aware that something has gone terribly wrong for them to be out panhandling for money, but whether it’s mental illness, addiction, or just having made poor choices somewhere along the way, no one will starve to death in Burlington and my giving them a dollar will do nothing to improve their situation in the long run. (God, I sound like such a hard-ass. My thoughts about all of this are actually far more complex than I’m explaining here, but you didn’t sign up to hear my rants about poverty in America and what helps versus what enables and perpetuates the problems.)


So apparently my general rules about giving to beggars are:
1. I give nothing to kids
2. I give something to old women and land mine victims
3. I give something to street performers
4. I give nothing to Americans at home, unless they’re performing for my enjoyment
5. I make decisions on-the-spot about giving to women with children in their arms


Actually, it turns out that I have one other rule, which I didn’t know I had until this evening. Once we had run the gauntlet of women on the sidewalk and were leaving the busier streets, Jaz and I were approached by an Australian man asking anxiously, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” We said we did and he asked if we happened to be Australian (obviously not) and how long we had been in Phnom Penh (about 24 hours.) “Well, that’s about 20 hours longer than I have and I have a bit of a problem.” He went on to explain that he had arrived by bus from Siem Reap earlier this afternoon, and had discovered on arrival that his backpack had been opened and relieved of his camera and his wallet, including all his money and credit cards. Thankfully, he still had his passport, and had gone to the police, but they wanted him to pay $20 to file a report. The embassy was closed until Monday morning, and he had no money at all until someone from home could wire money via Western Union on Monday morning. It sounded like every traveler’s nightmare - or perhaps a carefully thought-out scam - and I had no way of knowing which. I gave him the $6 I had in my pocket, which would at least buy him a meal and perhaps even a bed in a cheap hostel, and he thanked me profusely. We wished him luck and went on our way. I remarked to Jaz that there was a possibility it was a scam, which seemed to surprise her. She asked why I had given him money if I thought that might be the case, and I told her that if it was a scam, I had only lost $6, which I won’t miss. If it isn’t a scam, then I have helped him out a little, as I hope someone would do for me. I’d rather walk away with the possibility that I gave $6 to someone who didn’t really need it than the possibility that I refused to help someone who did.

So add to the above rules:

6. I give $6 to hapless Australians who don't keep track of their wallets

So after walking past dozens of homeless women and children, to whom I gave nothing, and passing out no more than a dollar to any Cambodian who I did give to today, I gave $6 to a man with the means to travel from Australia to Cambodia on vacation. Does that make any sense at all? Somehow, it all made some sense at the time, but as I write about it, I realize that you all must be scratching your heads, wondering “What the hell…?” Feedback, please.

A few words about corruption:

Does it surprise you to hear that the police wanted $20 to file the Australian man’s report? It wouldn’t, if you knew how things work here. Corruption is rampant in Cambodia. Government workers (like the immigration official in Poipet who tried to overcharge us for our visas), teachers, and civil servants all expect money to transact business. While this seems bizarre to us with our Western perspective, I’ve come to understand it as a “fee-for-service” economy, or a "tipping-in-advance-for-good-service” economy. While we Americans pay property tax and income tax and sales tax, which is distributed to various government agencies so they can pay their employees a reasonable wage (yeah, I know, not always as reasonable as one might like), there is essentially no tax base here. So a teacher makes $30 a month (this figure I know for sure), a policeman might make $40 a month, and maybe that immigration official makes $50 a month. None of these are livable wages, even in Cambodia, and the only way for people to make ends meet is to charge for their services above and beyond their salary. So school children are expected to bring money for the teacher (though not in PLF-sponsored schools), and if you need the services of a policeman or a Ministry of Education official or anyone else who we would think of as a civil servant, then you need to pay for those services, directly into the pocket of the person providing it.

It’s not so different than how restaurant workers are paid at home. No one can live on their $3.45 an hour; they completely rely on tips. But of course, eating in a restaurant is not a basic human right. Some can afford to eat out and some cannot, but everyone should be able to afford to go to school or file a police report.

On the other hand, if you don’t need those services, you don’t need to pay for them. But because everyone isn’t paying into the system, then if you need the service and have no means to pay for it, you’re out of luck. There’s no safety net for those without the means to pay - which explains the reliance on foreign aid and NGO’s to meet so many basic needs. But imagine the difficulty of changing the culture and introducing the concept of taxes.

So next time you grumble about paying your property tax bill, consider the alternative: if your house was on fire, the fire department might require an immediate cash payment before they would turn on the hose (assuming there even was a fire department.) And if you feel resentful about paying school taxes when you have no children in school, imagine your town full of children begging for school fees so they can pay the teacher. Our system is far from perfect, but there are advantages to it.

A few words about work:

I have no idea what the unemployment rate is in Cambodia. In fact, I doubt anyone knows, or even knows how to define it. In most families, several grown children live at home and pool resources to support their parents. One person with a well-paying job may support their own family and several extended family members. Rural people may be farmers who make enough to get by some years and not enough other years. There are certainly plenty of people without enough income to meet basic needs, though they may well be “employed” in the traditional sense. (See above discussion re: salaries.)

What is interesting to me is the way some kinds of work are done. After six weeks in Siem Reap, I had ample opportunity to observe constant street work, as one street or another was always in the middle of being dug up for some kind of repairs. However, there was little if any heavy machinery involved. Pavement was broken up by men with pickaxes, and rubble was carried away by women with small wicker baskets. Football-sized rocks were moved one at a time by hand. Cement was mixed in piles on the ground with shovels and carried in plastic buckets. And when all was done, the area was swept by hand, often with something resembling a whisk broom. So many people working in the hot sun, gloves on their hands and faces wrapped in scarves to keep from breathing the dust, doing jobs that could be done ten times faster by one machine. And while everyone is generally busy, no one is moving quickly. All of this work is done at a somewhat languorous pace - not surprising given both the heat and the fact that everyone is paid a flat salary no matter how long the job takes. And if backhoes and bulldozers and other machinery suddenly appeared on the scene, all of these people would be out of a job, and who would wish that for them? So the work looks hard and hot, but no one is frantic to finish, and there is often a good amount of talking and laughing going on among the workers. Efficient? It doesn’t look like it. Effective? Apparently. While I wouldn’t want such a difficult job, I am envious of the pace at which they work. It seems far more civilized than the typical pace of most American workers- except, of course, their American road crew counterparts, who famously need at least three people standing around leaning on shovel handles while one guy examines the hole being dug by the backhoe….and all the salesclerks at the mall who can’t be bothered to ring up your purchase until they finish that cell phone call with their boyfriend.

And napping is big. Taking a couple of hours in the heat of the day to lie down and sleep is a habit embraced here, as it is in many hot climates. I have seen vendors in the market sound asleep with their heads resting on their merchandise. I see tuktuk drivers stretched out snoring in their tuktuks at mid-day. Even more impressive are the moto drivers who can sleep on their backs on the seats of their little 100 cc motorcycles without falling off. When Ponheary is out doing tours at the temples, it is common for her to return to the guesthouse for a mid-day nap, while the travelers are presumably doing the same thing or swimming in their hotel pool to deal with the heat. I have embraced the nap myself, and feel quite sure that I will be requesting a cot in my office when I return to work.

A few words about children:

They are everywhere! About half the population of the country is under the age of 18, and when you look around you anywhere, you will have no doubt about this statistic. The number of schools along the roads, the number of children piled on motos with their parents, the prevalence of children just everywhere you look is striking. I realize that children here may also be more visible in part because they aren’t safely tucked into daycare centers all day or lounging in front of a TV, but even considering those differences, one cannot help notice children everywhere. As with any country in the world, they are Cambodia’s best hope for the future, and the potential is both encouraging and terrifying in its enormity.

Other observations about kids: kids here can have both more and less of a childhood, as defined by our standards. On the one hand, many children are expected to go to work at a young age or help in the rice fields and with daily household tasks. The country is full of orphanages and kids living in pagodas with the monks, lacking any kind of adequate parenting at all. There are families ravaged by AIDS and alcoholism and parents suffering from all levels of PTSD based on their experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime.

On the other hand, many children do have intact families, and when their work is done, they have the freedom to run around and be outside and play with sticks and cardboard boxes and pieces of rope. The kids at Tchey School knew playground games that required only a length of string, or a row of shoes, or no props at all. One day I saw kids there “driving” a paint roller on a long handle around the playground with great delight. Even the kids at the guesthouse, who are far more Westernized than most, have little in the way of toys and have much more creative and imaginative fun than kids at home who have the latest in battery-operated “educational” toys. A piece of string, a cardboard box, and a plastic cup provide hours of dramatic play. They play at making food, going to the market, and taking care of a baby (a pillow wrapped in a scarf.) They love to sing, they like to draw, they like to go on walks, and they take turns and share better than most kids their age. We developed a routine of allowing them to each have one piece of gum every day. They would never press for more, and if one of them hadn’t had a piece yet and appeared in our room, the others would remind us: “Yaya not have gum!”

A few words about shopping:

I’ve written about shopping in the markets as a tourist, but I wanted to share another observation I’ve made about shopping for necessities. Lori needed a voltage converter to be able to run a few small appliances she had shipped over from the states, so one day as we were out running errands, we stopped into an electrical shop. Did they have such a thing? Yes, they did. One model, one choice, once price ($8.50.) They took it out of the box and plugged it in to demonstrate that it worked, the purchase was made, and the converter was tossed into the bike basket and we were on our way. Total elapsed time: maybe three minutes. I couldn’t help but compare it to a typical American shopping experience for a similar item. Assuming I wanted to buy a voltage converter, I would be looking online at several different retailers, checking Consumer Reports or Amazon.com reviews for information about reliability or features, calling or stopping by local retailers to compare models and prices, asking my friends or family who might know something about it for their opinions, trying to anticipate a sale or find the online retailer who doesn’t charge for shipping, and generally thinking far too much about all the choices available. Total elapsed time: way too much. No wonder I don’t have time to take naps at home - I’m too busy researching my retail purchases!

Now, as with everything else I compare and contrast and joke about here, I am well aware that there are pros and cons to both systems. While I envy the simplicity of having one choice, one price, one venue for shopping for certain items, I would surely hate not to have any choice at all. It seems that so many things American and Cambodian are on such complete opposite ends of whatever continuum you might measure with, and I’d like to think that somewhere there exists a happy medium. I suppose I need to make the changes I have some control over in order to seek that out.

A few words about my few words:

I know you’re all intelligent enough to understand this point, but I want to assure you that I understand it myself: All of my observations are usually just that: my observations. They don’t provide a complete picture of anything here. Now and then I’ve augmented with factual tidbits (thank you, Google) and information I picked up from Lori or Ponheary, but it still nothing more than one curious American woman’s random observations. I assume if you want to know more and have a more complete picture, you can go to the library or Google for yourself, but in the meantime, I assume you’re reading here because for some reason, my random thoughts entertain you.

On to the next adventure!

We leave this afternoon for Chiang Mai, arriving late evening. It will be interesting to be back in Thailand and see how that feels and what similarities and differences we notice after being in Cambodia for so long. Give us a day or two to collect some interesting tales to tell and I’ll blog again when I can.

In the meantime, Happy Passover, Happy Easter, and Happy Khmer New Year!

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Photos

Kids living with HIV/AIDS selling T-shirts to raise money
Now that's one way I don't mind giving money.

Comments

[Tom Whitney]

Chang Mai!
Funny you should go there. Just a few hours ago I was walking by a restaurant with that name in Hilo, Hawaii. Eaten there a few times. Good food. I had to ask myself, "Is that Cambodia? No of course not." - and here you are going there. Send us a few pictures and i will share it with them at the restaurant. Love your journey! Tom

[Grace]

Dodgy Australian guy...
Ha! I dealt with the EXACT same man while I was in Phnom Penh in December 2009. I actually found this post by doing a search for "Australian guy begging for money in Phnom Penh", as I was intrigued to see whether or not others had run into him. Hilarious.

[jessw]

Are you serious???
As I suspected...

[Sathish]

This one is our mistake
This kind of photo shows how much we have improved.. All of us want go forgin and settle down there.. We do not care about our country.. We want only our happiness .. If everyone of us try surly we solve the issues without our gvt help. . My dream is to help this kind of childrns am sure I can do this..