‘Sir, wanna buy this bag for 3 dollars? Only 3 dollars, sir. Not much.’ ‘No, little girl. I don’t need a bag, because I already have one.’ ‘Please sir buy this bag. Only 3 dollars sir.’ ‘No really, I don’t need a bag.’ ‘Sir, PLEASE.’ ‘Sorry, no.’ ‘Sir, please buy this bag. Only 3 dollars sir.’ Sorry, but no.’ ‘Sir, please.’ ‘No.’ ‘Why not? Please buy this bag. Sir?‘ AArghhhh!!
The little girl followed me for at least 3 or 4 minutes, pulling the sleeve of my shirt and trying to persuade me to buy the bag. The poverty in Cambodia is really confronting. I knew Cambodia is poor (partly because of Pol Pot’s devastating regime), but it is much worse than I expected. The little girl in the picture is no exception. Cambodia is filled with children trying to sell rather useless overpriced items. The reason why I don’t buy these items is because as soon as you show interest 10 other children literally run towards you and try impose their merchandise, sometimes even aggressively (‘you buy then I leave’). An additional reason why not to buy their items: if you do you support child labor.
To make things even worse. The little salesmen aren’t the worst. This evening I went to a supermarket where a homeless woman holding a little baby in her arms followed me around with a can of milk powder, saying ‘my baby sick, needs milk. Please buy for me’. I thought, well okay, but when I saw the can of milk powder was 18 dollars I thought, ‘that’s just too expensive for me’. So instead I offered her 2 dollars. Surprisingly, she refused and kept repeating ‘my baby sick, need milk.’ Please help me.’ Really heartbreaking!
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