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Several
years ago, I shared a taxi from Phnom Penh to Kep with women who are
vegetable sellers. They live in Kâmpôt but sell in Phnom Penh markets.
EVERY morning they wake up at 4 AM and make the 3-4 hrs dangerous
journey in tightly squeezed space in a taxi sedan to Phnom Penh.
Every night, they reverse the journey process, arriving home between 10-11 PM, only to start the journey again in 5-6 hours' time.
I had to return to Kep where I was living at the time. I procured the
whole front seat of the taxi sedan to myself for $20, emphasizing to the
driver that I'm paying extra so that we can go as soon as possible. He
decided instead that I was in a generous mood and was not serious about
timing and waited for his regular customers, these vegetable sellers,
all 6 or 7 of them: 5 or 6 squeezed in the back and another one shared
his driver seat to his left side.
I decided to look upon this
as an adventure I used to having 15-20 years before, but felt like a
meanie having all of the passenger seat to myself even as they're
squeezed like sardines in the back and to my left. Fortunately, I had
the excuse of a cold which was obvious from my sniffling. They each paid
$2.50 (10,000 riels).
Theary C. Seng, 26 Dec. 2017
It breaks my heart to see the poor suffering. I was born very poor so I knew. Look at the vendor women; they were falling to sleep due to fatigue and lack of sleep.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, twice I lapsed into sleep due to fatigue and lack of sleep. My teacher let me sleep through because he knew how hard I was working and studying.
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I am very upset at Kem Sokha's daughter, the loud mouth princess who lives in luxury spouting out rhetoric of struggling while the poor are suffering. She is part of why the poor are suffering. She wants to drive jobs away to squeeze Mr. Hun Sen into releasing his daddy. She wants the poor to suffer then blame Mr. Hun Sen.