The tough thing about living in Cambodia

One of the hardest things about living in Phnom Penh is seeing the poverty. This reality hit... no shoved.. me pretty hard when I was coming out of the grocery store and a six or seven year old boy came up to me and pointed at my bag and said "banana" over and over again. I gave him one and he ate it like he was starving. His clothes were stained and dirty and it looked like he hadn't bathed in a while. It broke my heart. Another image that is framed in my mind is a 8 or 9 months pregnant, very young woman, sleeping against a lamp post next to the river, while her 2 year old child slept on a blanket on the sidewalk. I saw this same woman near my house, far away from the riverside, a few days before, wearing the same dress. She didn't have the toddler with her at that point, and I wondered where he was. I had two children, about 12 and 9, come up to me at a gas station while my motorbike taxi driver was getting gas. I gave them a dollar and they almost jumped for joy. I wondered where their parents were, or if they have parents.

Phnom Penh has a huge number of NGOs, just about one on every block, yet these kids look like they haven't eaten in days. It made me wonder where that money is going. To add insult to injury, the president of Cambodia wants to build the tallest skyscraper in Asia for $200 billion in Phnom Penh. I know that in the US, we don't do a great job of taking care of our poor either, but I don't understand why he is sinking money into a skyscraper that could be used to feed the people.


I went to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda on Saturday and I enjoyed it, but again, I kept thinking how much money was in those display cases that could be used for the people begging outside. I don't know what the answer is. A friend who works here said that so much foreign money has been flowing into Cambodia for so many years, that it should be in much better shape than it is... but everyone wants their cut. I will never see a Cambodia-trained doctor because they may have bribed the school officials to let them graduate with dismal scores. Many students pay the teachers for test answers and many  pay extra for additional tutoring if they actually want to learn something in class. Businesses often complain that Cambodian-trained graduates don't know anything. I think our girls are different-they aren't allowed to cheat and they work really hard. I just hope future employers recognize their intelligence and skills. These are all issues I hope to address in my future career. Cambodia won't be able to compete with the US or other western nation in terms of higher education any time soon, but it would be nice to at least bring all Southeast Asian countries up to the same standard.