Being a Girl

Before leaving Phenom Phen to Siem Reap, I got food poisoning. It was HORRENDOUS -- a miserable 30 hours of being "in bowels of the underworld" where I was confined to my bed and the toilet of my hotel room while everyone went to class/site visits. I can't express my fear of having to go to the hospital and getting an i.v. in the event I would get dehydrated ... probably because I SAW a sick man being transported in the back of a pickup with another man holding up an i.v. bag high into the air with his extended arm just a couple of days prior to my getting vilely sick. Watching CNN ALL DAY did not help, BUT I did see this commercial which opened my eyes to the severity of the disadvantages young girls have in Southeast Asia ... "just because they're girls."




Here are a couple of the young girls I saw in the village near Siem Reap. You can't help but wonder if something will happen to them and what their future will look like ....






This young girl is chopping wood with an axe under her house. She can't be more than 12 years old.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT LIFE IN CAMBODIA

~ Poverty here is ubiquitous! 80% of Cambodia's total population lives in rural areas and earns an average of $1/day!! The 2 major needs of Cambodian citizens today: 1. Education 2. Agricultural reform

~ City life is quite different, but still poor. When visiting the Genocide Museum or Toul Sleng Prison it was common to see a man with missing limbs following you with crutches and begging for money. Even at the Russian market there were several. There is no way to escape the presence of poverty ...

~ We saw a lot of women wearing pijamas as outfits. When someone from our group asked why the response was interesting. Supposedly, it is a way of showing that they now have enough money to buy them - so rather than just wear them to bed, they wear them out in public too!

~ Traffic in Phenom Phen is out of this world! Similar to Bangkok, I've never seen anything like it! Cars, trucks, bikes, motorscooters (FOUR people on them with no helmets) are everywhere!!

~ Many Cambodians say that it is a very corrupt country, which is sad ... The corruption, poverty, dark past, grim future, etc. are overwhelming to those who visit from other countries. The tourist of Cambodia comes away with an image of a very hard country. It’s difficult not to look at anything else but the poverty and the genocide; however, we must look at the positive – how they've rebuilt their country in 20 years, tried to have an optimistic attitude of “moving forward,” educating the younger generation of their past history (a concept recently introduced in the school curriculum) ...