It's about the people in the places.

“Lady, remember me?” barked a frame too small to carry a basket of books that heavy. I did remember her. I met Pon the night before at an open-air Khmer restaurant on the riverfront in Phnom Penh.

She had strolled in, ignoring the glares of the staff. With the confidence of a trial lawyer, she demanded my attention. “Lady. Want to buy a bracelet?” With indifference, I’ve waved away street peddlers countless times. This - she - was different. She was tough, hardened, and dirty. Yet, a glimmer of youth and joy remained in her deep brown eyes.
I wanted to rescue her from the streets, find her a toothbrush, and comb her hair. But life doesn’t work like that. She belonged to Cambodia, a country of contrasts – behind the poverty, unmarked land mines, and daily reminders of genocide, you can find resilience, redemption, and a kindness rooted in the Buddhist conviction of karma. It wasn’t my place to save this child and I’d be an imperialist to say she needed saving. I held myself back from offering to buy every item, offered up a little hope that the good people of Cambodia that I know exist would watch after her, and simply asked how much for the woven wallet.
She said $3 USD. I asked her name. In broken English, she said we’d play Rock, Paper, Scissors. If I won, she promised to tell me her name. If she won, I had to buy a bracelet, too. We Rock, Paper, Scissors’d our way through a wallet, two bracelets, and $7 USD.

But on this particular day, we weren’t on the riverfront playing games. It was a hot afternoon at the gates of the former S-21 Prison, where it is unknown how many people were tortured and killed. Pon should have been in school. I didn’t want to admit the fact that I bought her merchandise and she was a lucrative saleswoman at her tender age was keeping her out of school and on the streets.
She didn’t try to sell me another bracelet or the books she was carrying today. “Buy me a Coke,” she said.
From a cooler across the street, she picked out a drink. She stuck it in her purse, saying she wanted to save it for later. I wondered if she would enjoy that drink later or, more likely, she’d sell it back to the place where I bought it. Pon kept me company as I awaited a tuk-tuk driver. She was witty and I appreciated her humor. As I rode away, she opened her purse to show me she still had the Coke.

I never saw Pon again after that day. I’ll never know if she drank that Coke. But I will always remember her as the beauty in a land of contrasts.