A Simple Life

“Such a simple life,” a friend commented on a Facebook picture I had recently taken and shared for the world to see.

The picture was of four boats, anchored just off the shore of Sihanoukville. Each was painted a quintessential tropical color, flags flying high.

"But it’s not a simple life," I wanted to scream. The evidence of this had smacked me in the face the week prior.

I was in Cambodia for the month of May, studying travel writing, when we visited a small town outside of Phnom Penh. Chrey Cheoung, if not charming, was nothing; in addition to the bamboo huts, there was a monastery full of young boys in orange robes flocking to their temple, a majestic structure full of beautiful marble floors. Children who weren’t monks flocked to the fences at the edge of their yards, waving and grinning at those who pass.

At the end of the road, there was a cluster of buildings that, at first glance, seemed empty and forgotten, but upon closer inspection, formed a school made up of three buildings: a single-room schoolhouse, an empty library, and a crippling concrete outhouse. Thinking to my own college campus and the environment I sometimes dreaded to learn in, I was appalled, especially at my lack of appreciation.

“Our government likes to keep us in situations like this,” a local told us. “Having us uneducated and malnourished makes it easy for them to take and keep control.”

During my time there, I befriended a boy who called himself P. Dressed in green, he spent afternoons playing tag and laughing with me. I believed he was four.

“Well, actually, he is ten,” I was told. “People are so malnourished that they look very young.”

And yet, despite his surroundings, he remains, to this day, the happiest, sweetest child I’ve ever met.

Such a simple life, the words echoed. The evidence against this was staggering as I rolled it around in my mind.

And yet, I reflected, all he did was smile.