Sit on the beach in Sihanoukville and you will deal with constant stream of people trying to sell you fruit, sunglasses, massages, bracelets, etc. Most of them are children.
It's a lose-lose situation. If you buy from them it only encourages them to skip school or work on the beach. Or I should say, it encourages their parents to make them work on the beach. If you don't buy from them they get in trouble.
Ask the kids why they're not in school and they always have an excuse. If they're on the beach now it means they were in school this morning or will be this afternoon. Undoubtedly some go to school. Undoubtedly some don't.
There are signs on the beach from non-profit organizations and the Cambodian government asking tourists not to buy from kids. The sentiment is noble. The likelihood is nil. I have as much chance of changing the weather as I do of keeping these kids off the beach.
The kids on the beach mock the NGOs who claim to help them. Some of the organizations do great things, but too many of them are simply excuses for tourists to feel better about themselves.
What's a well-meaning tourist to do?
One day I met a new girl on the beach. Not only did her setup look new, she spoke no English. The kids on the beach amaze me with their ability to speak English, since they learn it all from interacting with tourists.
I was with a Khmer friend so even though the little girl spoke no English and I spoke no Khmer I was able to ask her some questions. Her name is Loan, she's 14, and she was indeed new to the beach.
She does go to school, but there was some sort of break. Normally she gets up in the morning, tends to the cows, goes to school, comes home and finishes her chores. Since there was no school she was sent to the beach to earn some money selling grilled squid.
She came by first thing in the morning. We were not hungry. I smiled and said "no, thank you" in both English and Khmer (one of the few phrases I know in the language), but she persisted. I felt sorry for her, because her frustration was obvious. I asked my friend to tell her that she's a pretty young girl and is more likely to make a sale by smiling and being friendly then by pouting.
I started asking her questions (through my friend, who interpreted) and she brightened up a lot. She was quite sweet once we got her talking, and quite pretty when she wasn't pouting. Like many of the people who work the beach, not only did she spend all day walking up and down the sand in the tropical heat, she had to walk miles just to get there.
Look at the rig she's carrying. On one side is a charcoal grill with a quiver of squid skewers sticking out. On the other is a bucket of squid with styrofoam plates, chili sauce, and whatever else she needs.
It's heavy. Carrying one of these rigs properly requires balance. The women who do it every day almost jog with them, using the rhythm of their steps to make the pole bounce on their shoulders, thus taking off some of the strain. Loan, on the other hand, plodded along the beach. Later that day she came back with a horrible burn mark on her leg. She had lost her balance and the grill had fallen against her leg.
Later in the day I bought some squid from her. I wasn't all that hungry but I wanted to help her out and, hey, I do love squid. I bought five. She tried to sell me ten but I just wasn't that hungry. She asked for a dollar. A dollar for five fresh, grilled squid, each about four inches long. I gave her a 10,000 riel note, or $2.5.
I wondered how much time she spent on the beach. Did she work certain hours? Did she work until she made a certain amount of money? She said she stayed on the beach until she sold all her squid. I indicated the dwindling number of skewers on the grill and said it looked like she could go home soon.
She opened up the cooler and showed me dozens of uncooked critters still waiting to be sold. I felt guilty. I thought I was helping her by overpaying her for the five squid but what I should have done was bought 10 or 15 of them.
All of which is very sad. But what struck me the hardest was when I asked her what she was going to do when she finished school. She said she didn't know. I asked her what her dream was. She didn't understand.
I asked her if she dreamed of being a nurse or a teacher. She just shrugged and said ottay. No.
Even now, two months later, it still breaks my heart to think this girl, who is very nearly done with school and will soon be of marrying age, has never even dared to imagine a better future.
I'll buy fruit from the kids but that's it. I bought fruit from Lin. As I ate she picked up my book and started reading.
At least she looked like she was reading. The book is "The Confusion" by Neal Stephenson, which even I struggled with!
I tell them right up front I'm not going to buy anything. For some reason they still sit and talk to me and visit me every day. Maybe they appreciate my honesty. Maybe they appreciate that I ask for and remember their names. Who knows. Whatever the reason, at times I'll have 10 or 12 kids hanging out around my sunbed.
Here, right behind where I'm sitting, a crowd of them watches as a ladyboy gives a manicure to Phoan, one of my "tour guides" from the waterfall.
The kids love playing tic-tac-toe in the sand. One day it started raining suddenly. I ducked under cover and played games with some of the kids until the storm passed. One of the little boys didn't have any paper so he improvised a game board.
While I won't buy from them I will buy for them. Late in the afternoon women selling noodles, eggs, etc. come down the beach. If there are kids around my bed when one of them comes by I'll buy them all a bowl a noodles. Paying 25 cents a pop to feed a bunch of kids is money well spent in my book.
One of my regular visitors was Mai Lin, a tiny little rough-and-tumble girl who just cracks me up.
Everything she does is funny. She would come by, take my sunglasses off me and put them on herself. Or push me aside so she could lie down next to me and take a nap. She wasn't afraid to make herself at home.
I wondered how much if any real impact a tourist like me could have on these kids. They talk to hundreds of foreigners every day. Do they even care? Or is it all just a game for them? I found out from Mai Lin.
One day she sat down in the sand next to me and started quietly crying. I asked her what is wrong. Because she's such a tomboy I thought maybe she had bumped her head roughhousing.
One of her friends said that Mai Lin had befriended a young German girl who been on the beach for the past few days. That day the German girl wasn't there. Another tourist told them that the German girl had left Sihanoukville. Mai Lin was crying because the German girl left without saying goodbye. It was all I could do to keep from crying myself!
This little girl speaks very little English. She would just come and sit by me quietly, just to rest, I think. One day I was listening to my iPod. I put the earphones on her.
She sat there like this for over an hour, calmly listening to music. Then she took off the earphones, waved and walked away.
I love playing with kids and roughhousing with them. I'm always struck at how much they respond to the slightest bit of genuine kindness. You can't fool a kid. They know if you care or not.
Normally I don't mind having kids crawling all over me like a jungle gym. But Cambodia is different. As I mentioned in a previous post, Cambodia is where the really sick sex tourists go. If having sex with kids is your thing then Cambodia is probably on your travel agenda. The government is cracking down, but the country is still fairly lawless in a lot of ways.
In Sihanoukville I avoid physical contact with the kids. I don't want to give them or anyone else the wrong idea. So when my buddy Srey Na wants to give me a big hug, as much as I'd like to reciprocate, I don't.
One problem with the people selling stuff on the beach is that there's too many of them. There are dozens of people each selling fruit, sunglasses, massages, scarves, etc. etc. I try to tell the kids to find something new to sell. If your friend is making money selling bracelets then you should sell something else!One day I was talking to a Canadian couple on the beach. They started making sand castles. The kids were fascinated. Could it be they've never seen one? So they started making sand castles.
Most of the kids eventually wandered but a little boy and girl stayed around and drew in the sand. Some of the drawings were pretty impressive. The little boy did pretty accurate renderings of the tattoos on my legs.
He made one really impressive drawing that really freaked out the Canadian couple and me. Unfortunately a wave wiped it out before I could take a picture. It was a pretty detailed drawing of planes crashing into the World Trade Center. He may have been alive on 9/11 but I don't know how he could have any memory of it. Who knows why he chose to draw it in the beach sand.Other drawings were of happier subjects.
How can you not love a kid who does this. In her second language!I stayed there for about two hours watching and encouraging them. I tried to tell them that if they made sand castles or made drawings in the sand people would give them money. I gave them each a buck to drive home the point.
I do what I can.
Posts
