“Hey lady, ten postcards one dollar!”
I look down as I walk and sure enough Molly is still following me.
“You see,” she declares proudly, shuffling through the souvenirs. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. You buy from me!”
Molly is four years old. She’s wearing a red bandanna tied around her wavy black hair, a long white tee shirt, and nothing else. For a moment, I pretend she doesn’t exist. After all, it’s easier that way.
You see, my Cambodia is the land of endless rice paddies, Angkor Wat, noodle soup, and the delightful bamboo railway. Looking down at Molly forces me to acknowledge another Cambodia, her Cambodia: welcome to the country of land mines, famine, genocide, child sex slaves, and extreme poverty and desperation.
“You buy from me!”
I shake my head, smiling softly.
No Molly, I think to myself. What I will do is take you home, where ever that is, put on your shoes, if you have any, drop you off at school, if you even attend one, and pray for a better life for you; one not consumed with begging and pain and poverty.
I don’t do any of those things though. Instead, I kneel down and fix her bandanna that has untied by her small ears.
“Where did you learn to count so well?”
Molly drops the postcards into her basket, and her smiles widens.
“Sally.”
I wonder, who is Sally? I wonder if Molly was taught to count to ten just so she could stand outside Angkor Wat, a temple that has endured genocide, civil war, and hundreds of years of life on this tumultuous planet, just so she could beg for one dollar.
“Well, you are a very smart girl."
Molly smiles again, but suddenly it falters.
“So you no buy from me?” she asks, chewing on her lip.
For a fleeting moment, I toy with the idea that she’s been taught how to pout but I dismiss the thought at once. No, written clear across Molly’s face is genuine, child like despair. At four years old, Molly understands all too well that money means food in her belly, clothes on her back, and a roof over her head.
“I’ll tell you what though: why don’t we get two ice cream cones?”
It settles my churning stomach that ice cream causes Molly to forget all about her job. She skips over to the booth with me and chows down happily on her strawberry ice cream bar. For a few moments today, she can be a four year old child.
“Bye bye,” Molly says as she runs away abruptly, her basket in hand and ice cream forgotten on the table, to prey on two Japanese tourists.
“Bye bye!” I yell at the vulture, but she doesn’t even turn around.
