Often I am asked for money here, usually in a way that is as casual as a “hello, good afternoon” or, as witnessed today, in place of it. Sometimes it frustrates me simply because I sit and think, “I only earn 269 bucks a month, most of which I don’t even keep! I’m just as broke as YOU,” which sometimes is the truth and sometimes isn’t. In Cambodia, many people are poor. This is not a glaring generalization or a point of self-righteous westernized pity: the average worker in my province earns between $50-75 a month. This means that most of my coworkers are earning roughly between $1.60-2.50 a DAY in a place where most food is arguably cheaper, but things like gasoline cost roughly the same amount as in the US. However, in terms of basic cost comparisons between the actual price of living, many of us are entitled to comparatively the same standards. Though the average price of any given item in the United States can be 3 times more expensive, the fact that most people here consider having lights, running water, and indoor plumbing as ‘rich’ makes that point very difficult to explain, especially since my Khmai is relatively limited. But then you think about the ‘hood.’ Not mine, for Delray Beach had its day, now arguably long gone thanks to intense gentrification (thanks CRA :/). But when you take into account the many pockets of society that America makes a point to hide and look over, the places of danger, poverty, and drugs where lives have been destroyed and entire families and communities torn apart, the third world country within the great shining light that is America-the conditions are actually not that different. And considering the actual support system that most communities have here, conditions are arguably better than in, let’s say, North Miami, West Atlanta, East L.A., or South Side Chicago. There are no junkies in Kampong Chhnang. No drug holes, no prostitutes, and no shootings. Teenage boys do not obsess themselves with choppers (AK-47’s), and there are no 12-year-olds burglarizing houses. Children here get to have childhoods. An 11-year-old gets to play with dolls and watch cartoons. When I was 11, people were having sex, getting into fights, and already selling weed at school or smoking it. By 13, there were isolated pregnancies and some childhood friends had already begun what would become their paths to incarceration. By 17, I knew people with their first murder rap. Cats were already ‘’accidentally’’ getting killed by police officers. Here, people simply don’t have that to deal with. After our “security debriefings” on Phnom Penh City, all I remember thinking is, “That’s it? Son I know jits back home that can bring more drama than that with their eyes closed.” There are no food deserts, and anything that can’t be purchased can be built, raised, or grown naturally. And just about any house that a guest enters into will offer them food, a drink, a chair, and a smile. They have very little money, but everyone has each other, sort of like the black community before the government funneled drugs and skewed social services into it.
But how do you get that point across to someone who doesn’t even own enough possessions to understand how little they mean? Or someone who doesn’t know the sound of a baby born addicted to crack? The sound of a mother after losing a child to a stray bullet and having to see her son or daughter stretched out on the pavement? At some level, everyone wants and sometimes even convinces themselves that they NEED the option of “selling out,” even if only for the sake of being able to send your son or daughter to school or afford their medicine when they get sick . Maybe it’s just to afford a nice moto or, let’s shoot for the stars here, a car, or a house that’s made entirely out of CONCRETE with glass windows and air conditioning units. For you to even have the space to do that type of dreaming or, better yet, to even think that doing something as simple as asking for the equivalent of 10 cents from me or as intense as snatching my cell phone from a tuk-tuk would get you any closer to actually being able to LIVE that dream, makes it easy to see why cats back home do similar shit (and worse). It can also explain the looks of yeah right when I attempt to explain that for an immigrant who doesn’t speak any English, the old US of A ain’t all peachy. Definitely makes you think twice before twisting your face up at the kid standing there with holes in his clothes, no shoes, and dirt under his nails.
