Wealth Amongst Poverty- An Interesting Read

The following article is one I found by a freelance Expat blogger who lives in Sihannoukville in Cambodia's south. I found I really connect with his ethics, and he pretty much outlines spot-on my own take on how to act as a wealthy foreigner amongst such poverty. Having experienced beggars, child vendors and the like while growing up in Phnom Penh, they really are things that are in your face and that you have to make guidelines for yourself of where to draw the line. One cannot give to every single beggar, and supporting mothers who whack their babies to make them cry for your cash is just plain off. But many are really in need, so where do you draw that line? For Ben and I, our whole reason for moving overseas is to help said people, through more formalised mechanisms of education and development. For those however who fall outside the system, Dvoretz's article outlines our mantra. 

Keeping a Clear Conscience Living in Cambodia

As I sit here sipping at a cappuccino at a local cafe in my little town of Sihanoukville, my mind wanders to the strange and unusual things that surround me on a daily basis. Life as an expat in Cambodia is full of juxtapositions. I am reminded of the days I would go to downtown Miami with my parents as a young boy. I would be happily walking along, make one wrong turn and glitzy Miami turns into the straight up ghetto.

Take for example my current situation. Here I am sitting at a fancy café sipping on an incredibly tasty cappuccino served in an elegant class with fresh chocolate shavings on top. If I so choose, I can go to a stylish French restaurant for dinner and order a juicy filet mignon followed by a glass of red wine. Yet, just around the corner people are living in aluminum sheds and living hand to mouth. When I stand on balcony of my beautiful spacious apartment with all the western amenities, I am looking down on the third world. I regularly see some of my Cambodian neighbors across the street washing with a bucket of cold water pulled from a well.

Living as an expat in a developing nation, you will get hardened to extreme poverty. It’s inevitable. If not, you couldn’t survive in these countries. The guilt of living a lifestyle you have grown up accustomed to will weigh heavily on your shoulders. You quickly realize you can’t change the world. The best is to do what little you can.

I think every expat has their own personal way of handling it after moving to Cambodia; dealing with the beggars and the poor selling useless items. Each expat reacts differently to paying a little more at the market than a local might. You’ll find many westerners here bargaining over every little penny. Believe me though, that seller needs it way more than you. That’s not to say walking around getting ripped off left and right is okay either. There has to be a fair line that works for you too.

So for once, why don’t I tell you a little about your author? I am always writing authoritative pieces for my loyal readers, I thought it would be fun to give you all a glimpse into my psyche.

How Do I Handle Life in Cambodia?

The Beggars

I know that I can’t give to them all and, in truth, at this point there are many I don’t want to give to anyways. As a general rule, I don’t give to any able-bodied person under the age of about 55. In my eyes, if you are young enough and strong enough to be working, you should be. This includes those pathetic looking young girls with sedated babies. Now I know this next part sounds cruel and you are all going to groan and moan at me, but I also never give to children beggars. I have a long drawn out explanation to my theory that perhaps I’ll examine in another article if I get some comments inquiring, but let’s just say that I believe giving to a begging child perpetuates a bad cycle. In all honesty it's hard not to give to all the Cambodian beggars.

So who is left? Well, I give to the old and the infirm; the ones that can’t work even if they want to. The ones that remind me of my grandparents who shouldn’t have to work anymore even if they can. This country has been through war and genocide just thirty odd years ago. Many of them lost any chance they ever had at a prosperous future during those horrendous years. Others lost their chance perhaps while farming or digging and accidentally hitting a leftover bomb from the US. These are the beggars I give to. Their chance was taken away.

Child Vendors

Touching lightly again on my theory of children beggars, I have a much higher respect for the children selling trinkets and things. There is a whole campaign of people who try and convince others not to buy items from child vendors in Cambodia as they should be in school, but I am realistic enough to know that is not a luxury everybody can afford. In the real world some children in developing nations need to work to help their family. I will regularly buy stupid bracelets, key chains, or good luck flowers for my car from these children. I don’t need these items, but I can afford them and it helps the child and their family. I also believe it helps to reinforce a good work ethic.

On the flipside, I don’t let the children rip me off as they do many of the tourists. We agree on a fair price where they make some profit, I don’t get ripped off, and everybody wins. It helps that I speak Khmer so even the children that don’t know me by now learn quickly not to rip me off. It was amusing having a talk with one girl the other day. I bought a key chain off her for $1.50. I could have bought it for $1, but I didn’t mind. I decided to ask her how much she sells them to the tourists for and she told me they will pay $4 or $5 for them. I did my part, but I ain’t doin that much.

Domestic Help

Sounds fancy doesn’t it? Well it’s true. Living in Cambodia I actually have a maid who cleans my house regularly. Yeah, yeah, life is sweet here I know. Anyways, my maid comes twice a week. Do I need her to come twice a week? No. It’s just me living here, but do I need that extra $6 it costs me to have her come back and clean a second time? Is $24 a month really going to affect me?
It will certainly affect her life. She and her family need that money. Every day she leaves my house, the first thing she does is go to the market and buys food. I know because I regularly offer to give her a lift home so she can save the cost of the moto ride.

Waiters, Security, Etc

Tipping in Cambodia is highly appreciated as many foreigners don’t do it. Funny enough, most of the rich Khmer do. I treat tipping here the same as I would in America. They have to work for it, but if they do, they get a tip. Albeit my standards of good work and service are lower here so it doesn’t take much, just a little bit of attention. Tipping waiters $0.25 or $0.50 will not only get you an appreciative expression or look, it will also get you great service when you come back. My tips in Cambodia are usually between the 5% and 10% range.

Security guards/ car park attendants are another person that usually gets tipped here. Generally it is a pointless job as Cambodia is a relatively safe country for vehicles unless it is real late at night in a dark part of town, but the man stands attentively outside , or perhaps sometimes snoozing a little, watching over my vehicle. Then when it is time for me to leave, he runs out into the street blocking the chaotic traffic through daring force of will alone. He is also usually standing in my blind spot within inches of my car making pulling out more difficult than the traffic would have, but hey, how can you not reward an effort like that? $0.25 is a reasonable tip and everybody leaves happy with the encounter.

My Conscience is Clear

In my small ways, I do what little I can where I can. I reward the behavior of the hard workers that are trying their best to piece together a life in this tough country without squandering my bank account irresponsibly. I buy the things I don’t need, I tip when I don’t have to, and I try and give a little extra work to the locals when I can. Maybe others do more, I am sure many others do less, but this is how I sleep at night living in a third world country.

Article written by Brett Dvoretz
http://expatsandaliens.com/articles/keeping-a-clear-conscious-living-in-cambodia

Life in Boxes (Part II)

Well this last week has been hectic. For me anyway. Ben's always very calm and cool-headed about these sorts of things. I spent the week packing the house and moving the majority of things into our study, which turned from a decent study into something out of "Hoarders: Buried Alive"...

After the movers were finished it became a 100% empty room with an incredible echo that Ben and I have been sneaking into to sing mini choral duets, because the resonance sounds more like a cathedral than even a cathedral! (We mostly burst out laughing half way through at how ridiculous we are singing at each other in a weird room). Our favourite tunes include those haunting ones from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (hehe!)

On Friday the movers arrived, exactly at 8.00am- two burly looking European guys- and after 2.5hrs our home transformed into a maze of walls made of boxes stacked high.

It was a pretty stressful business, mostly because Ben and I felt helpless to do anything and seemed to just be getting in the way if we tried to help. The best we could do was to have prepared the house in advance like we had, and then just supervise. I still have no idea where actual items went though. Our beloved ice-cream maker that we wanted to lend to my family could be in any one of 5 large kitchen boxes, packed tight and wrapped in paper. They'll never find it.

I think the saddest thing is that this was our home, we'd built this place (not literally) and filled it with ourselves and our memories, things that we'd collected before and after we were married. It was comfortable, homey, and it was ours. Now we will not see many of our things again for 2 years or more, and by then, we would have accumulated more 'things' and more 'stuff' that could leave our original belongings redundant. We hate ourselves for being so consumerist and defining ourselves by our possessions, but that is just the way it is. Now, we are living in the empty house for 1 last week while Ben finishing teaching at the school and I give the house a jolly good vacate clean. We have a suitcase each, an air mattress on the floor and a couch (that belongs with the house) as a bed, as well as 1 cooking pot and 2 bowls between us. We're going to be living like this for the next month or so anyway as we jet down to Perth for Christmas and then to the UK to visit family, before finally leaving for Cambodia.

 It definitely feels refreshing to be so minimalist, I just wonder how long we will keep it up once we actually settle again for real! Most of all, we feel like this is definitely 'it' now, there's no going back on our decision. Our new life begins now!

Our Life in Boxes

It's been a busy week for us in Hedland- we finally finished getting our medical forms done after many trips to the doctor and the hospital, and our attention has turned to getting our unit in order.  Pretty much everything we own is either being prepared for boxing or getting sold.  Ruth has been very stressed and sneezing a lot from all the dust (it just appears, we swear!).  Having to plan for multiple trips has made it a bit more difficult, as we need to have clothes for our last week here, a box ready to go for England, and a box ready for Cambodia.  We've been quite fortunate to have good luck at our online sales, with most of our things going for very close to the price we paid for them, and I'm using this as evidence to Ruth that my online shopping habits aren't so costly after all.  After Ruth put in a solid afternoon of vacuuming and organising the house, we're now seeing mostly empty space, and we're a bit more hopeful about getting this all done without much more stress.