Back in Phnom Penh, and other thoughts...

[This is another re-posting from Lauren's Tumblr. The original post date was May 29th, 2011. To see some of her great photos and to read more about her travels, please check out: http://sheshallgofree.tumblr.com]

I am back safely in Phnom Penh after a 6.5 hour ride from Siem Reap on a bus with a partially broken/collapsing floor at the back (but hey, it only costs $5...sooo worth it).

On Saturday (our last full day in Siem Reap), we decided to go visit the last two temples on our list: Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei. I visited both of these temples in 2009 as well, but they are magnificent and well worth a second visit. Ta Prohm is the temple where "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" was filmed back in 2000. Much of the temple was blocked off this time because of restoration work...but Ali and I accidentally got lost (it is a bit of a maze) and ended up in the "DANGER! DO NOT ENTER! WORK AREA! UNSAFE!" zone...oopsies. But at least we found our way back out?

I loved going back and seeing both of these sites because they are well preserved, architecturally stunning, and just beautiful all around. But going back also broke my heart--these two sights have (understandably) become major tourist hotspots. Many of the other temples we visited on this trip weren't quite as popular or well-known, and we often had entire temples to explore with no one else around. But because of the popularity (which, I believe, can partly be attributed to the constant insistence of tuk-tuk and moto drivers that "Oh no, you don't want to see Ta Keo...Ta Prohm much better! I take you there!"), it has also become a hot-spot for merchants. And specifically for the use of children to sell goods. I wrote in my previous post that young children on the street has been a decidedly absent scene compared to 2009. A few hours after that post, I was being swarmed by children at Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei, urgently shoving bracelets and postcards and knick-knacks in my face: "Three for $1...okay lady 4 for $1...okay okay 5 for $1. Lady...5 for $1...please lady...please."

It made me angry. I kept thinking: these kids should be in school. They should not be here frantically and desperately trying to guilt tourists into purchasing cheap products so that whoever is sending them out here in the first place can get a few extra bucks. This is wrong. This is wrong!! 

Just as it did in 2009, the scene made my blood boil and brought tears to my eyes. The kids were so young. I stopped and spoke with a few of them. One girl at Banteay Kdei followed me around for a few minutes at the back of the temple, repeating the same phrases over and over. She looked at me with the saddest, most heartbreaking eyes. I knelt down in front of her and began speaking with her in my limited Khmer mixed with English.

What's your name? Srey Mam.

My name is Lauren. How old are you? I am 10 (she looked to be no older than 8, at best...but "10" or "16" are common answers when asked by tourists, regardless of how old the child really is).

You are very beautiful, Srey Mam.

She smiled and lowered her eyes. I wondered if anyone ever told her she was beautiful. Light skin is highly prized and valued in Cambodian society, and children with darker skin are often considered ugly. I have encountered this repeatedly--in Sihanoukville, I was talking with a Khmer woman named Sophie, and I pointed out a little boy (maybe 1.5 years old) running around naked in the sand. I mentioned that he was adorable. She turned her nose up in disgust and said "Ugh! No! He is so dark!" Srey Mam's skin was dark by Cambodian standards. So I wondered if people told her she was beautiful. I took her picture and showed it to her on the LCD screen of my Canon. I told her again that she was beautiful, and she smiled. I told her I couldn't buy anything, but that it was nice to meet her. I had to leave. I was kicking myself for not having anything I could give her (food, a small toy, something other than money, which would inevitably go back to the person who sent her out in the first place, instead of to school).

Seeing kids being used to guilt tourists into purchasing merchandise angers and saddens me. Seeing them run around, mostly barefoot and unwashed, chasing aftertuk-tuks and repeating the same 3-5 phrases they know in English over and over...and watching people push past them, ignoring them. Watching workers with APSARA Authority patches on their arms do nothing, say nothing. Watching everyone just let it happen...And being powerless to do anything about that. It makes me angry. These kids deserve better. And as I mentioned in my previous post, they are capable of so much more.

Just some thoughts...

Something I have noticed...

[This is a re-posting of a blog post published on Co-Executive Director Lauren Dawson's Tumblr. Original publish date was May 27th, 2011. To see more posts from Lauren's travels in Cambodia, check out: http://sheshallgofree.tumblr.com]

Since being back in Cambodia, I have noticed a few glaring changes between now and 2009. First, I have encountered far fewer children begging in the streets. When I was here last, children as young as 5-11 would be wandering through traffic in Phnom Penh, dodging tuk-tuks, motos, and cars whizzing by on busy streets. There were often children that looked to be 7 or 8 walking barefoot and dirty, caring younger siblings on their hungry hips. There was one road in particular where there never failed to be children begging in traffic, hanging off the side of our tuk-tuk when we stopped at a light. I often cried because there was so little I could give them or do for them. My roommate and I stopped in a market and bought cookies and crackers to pass out to the kids. It was heartbreaking and infuriating. But that scene has been startlingly absent this time around. Most of the children I have encountered this time are involved in selling items like bracelets, postcards, booklets, scarves, etc. And even then, they appear to mostly be concentrated around the tourist-heavy riverfront area--and they appear to be older than the children we encountered last time. Most of them look to be teenagers, though there are younger children out selling in the streets too--just not as many, and perhaps not as young.

My memories of Siem Reap from 2009 include aggressive, desperate, persistent little girls following us around temples and insisting that we buy their bracelets and scarves, forcing merchandise into our hands and demanding money, clearly desperate to make the sale. But I knew then (as now) that those girls were sent out by someone else. They wouldn't benefit from the money I gave them. It would go back to whoever sent them out into the streets in the first place. Maybe things haven't actually changed--maybe my memory of 2009 is a bit clouded by the exhaustion I was experiencing by that point in my trip. But things do at least appear better/different this time around. Again, the girls seem older, less frantic, less demanding and aggressive.

Of course, they are just as intelligent, creative, and sharply witty as they ever were. The kids I met in 2009 and those I have met this time around are incredibly capable and strong and wonderfully intelligent. I don't want to give the impression that they are helpless (they aren't) or that they are not/cannot be agents for change in their own country (they are). But like children everywhere, they need opportunities and love. They need the chance to go to school and cultivate their natural gifts and abilities and discover their true potential. They need to be valued and respected and seen as the capable and strong individuals that they are. Cambodia is changing and (I hope) moving forward. And these children are the ones who will shape Cambodia's future. So they need to be recognized as agents of change, not as hopeless and helpless and in need of "saving" by privileged white men and women swooping down and putting a band-aid on the larger problems (of poverty, a history of genocide and conflict, exploitation of local populations by foreign corporations and manufacturing companies, environmental degradation, government corruption, etc). These kids should not be treated as powerless victims. They can and should be treated as capable, empowered change makers. I just wanted to make that clear...

I forgot where I was going with all of this...I am not sure yet what to do with these observations, but I wanted to share them. I hope it was coherent...More thoughts to come...

Lauren has been in Cambodia for about 2.5 weeks and has another 5 weeks remaining. She has been traveling around the country and is now volunteering for Child Wise Cambodia, which works on children's rights and trafficking prevention efforts.