SEVEN CENTS

The shift change for beggars in Phnom Penh seems to come just about an hour after nightfall. The children selling books, begging for a handout and the many amputees, most with their own micro-business, dominate the daylight hours. In truth, most of the action during the day is from children trying to sell books. The straight out begging which is common on the beaches of Sihanoukville, the blind men being led by their children and the land mine victims sliding their way along the sand, cap in hand, are not a common sight in the Cambodian capital. Once night falls it is a different story. Perhaps cowed by the heat of the day, small families – typically just a mother and a sick-looking child or two - creep out onto the footpaths and begin their appeal for money.
I am ambivalent about beggars. It is easy to imagine that you are being taken advantage of, and that the four year olds carrying sleeping children along the streets are part of an organised business, run by some unscrupulous adult. The Siem Reap milk powder scam is a great example: mothers will appeal for you to buy milk powder from the local pharmacy for the sickly child hanging limply in their arms. This appeals to a lot of foreigners who would rather buy food than give money to someone who may not feel the full benefit of it. All is not as it seems, however. The milk powder is rapidly sold back to the pharmacy at a discount, and the scam is ready to be repeated. The mothers begging on the streets after dark in Phnom Penh seem of a different ilk however. I have no reason to believe this is indeed the case, but at any rate, they are more likely to be on the receiving end of my philanthropic largesse than their peers.
Such it was that walking home the other night, slightly tipsy, I spotted a woman sitting on a mat on the river road in Phnom Penh. Her dark brown face had a wide, deep scar running from one side to the other, crushing the bridge of her nose. Before her on her tatami mat lay a child, perhaps a year old, in a filthy t-shirt, naked from the waist down. I had just been to a convenience store and had some change in my pocket. I pulled out the riel notes I had received in my change and handed them over to her. She clasped her hands in thanks and turned her head away. I walked on feeling slightly more at peace with the world and grateful that I had not just walked by. That is, until about two hours later. I calculated what I had left in my pocket and realised I had given the woman three 100 riel notes. 4200 riel makes up one US dollar. I had given her about seven cents, as far as my addled mind could calculate. Even in Cambodia this is a pathetic amount of money. I imagined the thoughts that ran through her head as I reached down to give her the bills: gratitude, relief,, and then most probably disappointment when she realised that this was what apparently passed for charity from this particular foreigner. I felt guilty for a while but then realised there was an obvious, simple solution. There was no doubt that she would be out there again, the next night, and the night after that. I had time to redeem myself. And I wouldn’t even need to go out of my way. She was, after all, on the way to the best bar in town.