People around town

Here are some of the people we meet around town. We try and buy each person a meal or a drink while we are here.

Mr We lost his leg ten years ago. He now sells cards to tourists. We bought him a meal and a drink. He then ordered a jug of bear without asking and wasn't too happy when we didn't put it on our tab. Afterwards, some of the locals told us he had a bit of a drinking problem. He seems to do OK selling ten cards for $1. It is unfortunate he drinks a fair bit of his profits away. These guys seem to do quite well selling things to tourists. Many of the working people we talk to earn about $40 per month, while Mr We and others like him can easily earn double that.

This guy is quite famous in Siem Reap (I'll update this when I remember his name). Chances are you have met him if you have been here. He makes his living selling books from a little box he hangs around his neck. He is always smiling and happy to talk to tourists. He comes from eastern Cambodia, near the border with Vietnam. He lost his arms some 20 years ago to a land mine. You can see the terrible scars across his stomach and chest. When he got injured he spent some time in Vietnam getting treatment. He told us he was in unbearable pain when it happened and he wanted to die. He is quite clever with his limbs. He can rifle through his books and pull out whatever you may be looking for. He has found an ingenious way to eat using just a rubber band and spoon.

Whenever we by these guys a meal or drink, they always order the most expensive drink on the menu. Sometime we wonder if they get some kickbacks from the restaurant for ordering this, but we don't begrudge them the fifty odd cents they get from doing this.

Sadly, this is something we see all over the place. This photo was taken about 2 seconds after the little boy had climbed out of the rubbish bin as he was going through looking for cans or bottles. We'd love to carry food to give away, but we just can't carry enough. We do carry a lot of candy around though. They seem to like that.

Well, we'll end there again, just one last photo showing you how hot it can get teaching under the orphanage: