Take-Aways

I like Phnom Penh, it’s got a vibe, something alive about it even though it full of contradictions. The royal palace is flanked by shanty town buildings and child beggars on the streets. The city has temples that are the birthplaces of Cambodian Buddhism as well as the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison where the Khmer Rouge terror reigned. It’s got well meaning NGOs at every corner and bars and restaurants that would make a trendier city proud. It’s got cripples begging for money and tuk tuk and motorbike drivers hassling for fares. Everywhere, there is a tug of war for the tourists’ hearts and purses. Yesterday, on my way back from the Killing Fields, the place where the Cambodian genocide took place, my driver said whether I would like to go to a local orphanage. Just take them a bag of rice. How can you say no to that. I didn’t, say no, I mean. I went, together with my 25kg sack of rice that he purchased at a market of his choice. I don’t know what to think about the place I saw. How do you know, if it is legitimate or not. How do you know if it is a place that really caters for these children’s future or if it is just another kind of exploitation that you unwittingly conspire in. The place was miserable. A wooden shanty full of people of all ages, steeped in mud. But the kids seemed ok and it looked like somewhere round the back, in a makeshift classroom, some volunteer was giving an English lesson. But the manager cum owner was some sort of Faiggin character from Oliver Twist. He had managed to corner a couple of Australian ladies into becoming “God Mothers” for two young girls. This basically consists of them contributing $8 a month and him signing a piece of paper to that effect. Dripping honey when he talked to them but also spurring the young girls in the Khmer language to go towards them, sit in their laps and generally soften them up. Maybe that is what fighting for survival looks like. It’s not pretty, not dignified, there is no pretence, no beating about the bush. I just felt uncomfortable. How do I know, really know that the money goes to pay for the girl’s English or dance course. How do I know that it goes where I intend it to. He did give me a receipt for the rice. And when I asked whether sending books would help he got really animated and excited. And still I could not warm to his project. Something left me cold and suspicious. This probably says more about me than anything else. A dryness within, an inability to just trust, believe and simply and naturally give. What is it that Francois Bizot says in his book of his account as a survivor of the Khmer Rouge? The answer is in taming the inner demon. I failed yesterday. I just left my bag of rice and moved on. Maybe it’s just a matter of finding what speaks to me; something that I really choose. Not something I am roped into.