Siem Reap is a weirdly lovely town. It's got a fantastic night life, the people are all super friendly and we've been staying in the nicest hostel we've been in for a while. After my last post, I was feeling pretty positive about the world in general. Yes, it can be a horrible place where people do nasty things to one another, but I think that there's inherent good in everyone, even if you have to search extremely hard to find it. Buoyed by all the positive thinking (and always up for a party), we tested out the main bar street and acquired some new friends, who we took back to our hostel for a slightly more low key evening. It was a really good night - the sort where you all share deep secrets about yourself that you never knew before and will probably forget afterwards, though the people who you shared them with will remember them long after you lose touch. As is the way when you reach the small hours of the morning, most suggestions seem like a good idea at the time, which is why at about 2 a.m. three of us trooped out to the supermarket to buy snacks and cigarettes (not for me, Mum, promise!). On the way, Maggie warned us that there would probably be children outside asking for you to buy them some food, or some formula for the babies they sometimes had with them. Unfortunately, this is a long-standing scam here, where the formula actually gets sold on rather than being used for the children you think you've bought it for, so the only option really is to buy crackers or similar and open the bag yourself before giving it to them.
Despite bracing myself for the worst, I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next. There weren't very many children at all, though one girl of about 8 or 9 was holding a tiny baby boy who could only have been a few weeks old. This was pretty heart wrenching in itself - obviously there were parents around somewhere, but it was the children who were carrying babies up and down the street early in the morning in order to make a few dollars. Maggie bought some food to give to them and started trying to hand it out. The young girl was quite savvy, and had obviously clocked that I had a bit of a weakness for her and the newborn she was carrying. She turned down Maggie's offers of food, and instead clung onto my dress with one hand and demanded some formula. I had absolutely nothing on me - no bag or money or anything so I wouldn't have been able to buy some formula for her even if I'd wanted to. I did my best to make her let go of me but she persisted, and in the slight scuffle the little boy woke up and began to cry. Without much time to think, I took the baby from her, figuring that if she was going to cling onto me it was much better for me to carry the boy in both my arms than in her one free one. I'm definitely not the sort to get broody - I'd rather have a dog than a child at this point in my life, but nevertheless I rocked him gently to sleep and almost melted. My attention was solely focused on him, though after he nodded off I realised that the girl had let go of my dress and was instead just watching me. It was definitely time to leave. I went to pass the boy back to her, but she turned her back on me. I tried again and the same happened. Desperate, I attempted to hand the boy back to some of the other children and was met with the same reaction. I did this over and over, and still none of them would take him from me. I thought that if I started to walk away they'd follow and take him from me, but they didn't.
It's a bizarre night when it gets to about four in the morning and you're left holding a tiny baby in the middle of a foreign country that nobody will take back from you. It pretty much broke my heart. I can't quite convey just how tiny he was, and I seriously began to consider what I could do with him if they actually didn't take him back at all. There are orphanages here, but I didn't think I could leave him. I honestly thought that if it came to it, I'd have to adopt him and work out a plan somehow. It breaks me to think that there didn't seem to be anyone in the world who loved him, and he was instead just being paraded up and down a street late at night in order to make some money. It's just not something that should happen in the world. When I told another friend this story, she said that once when she was travelling she visited a place so devastated by poverty that the mothers there offered to give their babies away in exchange for almost anything. I know now that it was probably a naive view, but before I always kind of thought that you were at least guaranteed love from your mother, and if she couldn't love you she'd still at least have the humanity to make sure you had a decent shot at life. My 'inherent goodness' view is mostly held together by the thought that everyone is able to love and show kindness to someone in their life, be it their child, parent, lover or someone else. Even Hitler had a family and he was a right old bastard. I still have that view, but it's been shaken a lot because of what happened.
Eventually by chance, some of the people who work at my hostel were out riding around on motorbikes, and they managed to fix the situation by shouting a lot in Khmer and handing over a modest amount of money to the children. The boy was unceremoniously taken from me and given back to the children, and I hopped on the back of a bike and got a ride home where I had a bit of a cry. I think we all did. The morning after I wanted nothing more than to leave Siem Reap and head straight to the beaches in Thailand where I could put it all out of my mind. We booked a bus that left the next morning and had a chilled day visiting an off-the-beaten-track temple, then went out for a rather delicious Mexican meal in the evening. I'm yet to go anywhere here without meeting millions of people and chatting away to them, and last night was no exception. I bumped into someone who's volunteering at an orphanage here for three weeks. After chatting to him for a bit and swapping contact details, we sauntered home to bed for our 7:30 a.m. set off to Bangkok in the morning.
Which is why it's now almost 1:30 in the afternoon, and I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Siem Reap waiting for him to email me back so I can go and volunteer at the orphanage for a few days. I've very little money to spare and no refund on my unused ticket, but when I woke up this morning it just felt like the right thing to do. Here's hoping it doesn't leave me as traumatised as the other night!
Life's a funny old thing.
1 comment:
What an amazing story, I'm not surprised you felt shaken by what happened.
Fortunately, most people in this country don't understand the reality of true poverty. Poverty doesn't mean that you can't afford to go on holiday or eat out; it means that everything in your life - including your children - becomes a commodity.
My Nan had a saying, 'love goes out the window when poverty walks in the door'. I think that in many senses this is true - when faced with a life of immense hardship, love for friends and family and even oneself is gradually eroded and all that's left is the very basic human instinct of survival.
You shouldn't feel too badly about your experience though - those children are living the life they were born into and they don't know any different. Anyone coming from the 'decadent west' is bound to compare these peoples' lives to their own. But those children know nothing else to compare to and most likely all the people they know are in the same boat. In fact, although you will probably always remember the events of that evening, I imagine that to them it was just 'business as usual', already forgotten!
I would agree with you that most people are inherently good - Dr Terror hasn't killed anyone for months and Hitler was very kind to his dog.
Post a Comment