Hell on Earth

Two days ago we went to the dump.

Its about 20min out from where we are, which is in the center of Phnom Penh.

A lay missionary from Japan, Yuki, gave us a tour since she works there distributing medicines and helps run the schools they have begun. The houses are worse then most of the slum houses I have seen before. Most I have seen in the past are made of tin and cardboard, these are made of mats and straw and tarps. There is no water, electricity, or plumbing. There is no sewage system, so you can use your imagination as to the sanitary state of the place. Water has to be bought, $1 for water in a place where they survive by scavenging the dump for recyclables, the average daily income doesn't even reach a dollar here.

The schools the missionaries have set up here try and reintegrate the children in to the general public school system. Having no source for education, they are even more behind in their schooling than usual, and these schools hope to bring them up to par. Considering that schools are distant and that they are also needed at home, who knows if they will be reintegrated into the system. The children are amazing and beautiful, hilarious with their pranks and they love to flirt with the camera. (I really have to figure out how to post pictures.) Diseases run rampant, TB, lice, skin diseases, and of course the ever present HIV/AIDS virus. While there, Yuki handed out medicine to a TB patient who was lying in one of the straw huts, and smearing the children with an antibiotic ointment on their multiple cuts and bruises.

The dump itself. Well you walk behind the ramshackle huts and encounter a wall of trash. No kidding, a wall. About 30-45 feet high. You walk, over the trash, to the main dumping area, and its something out of a sci-fi movie. They burn most of the trash, and so smoke is burning your eyes with a wind that's blowing ash and god knows what else into your eyes and mouth (I have found another use for Buffs, they make an excellent mask) and you can’t really see as everything is hazy. People are everywhere, collecting a shifting through trash to make a living. There are makeshift houses there too, on top of the trash itself. They look like aliens, covered head to toe in rags, shifting through bags of clothing, rotting food, plastics, everything you could imagine. It really is hell on earth. Burning fumes, the repulsive smell, the haze obscuring your vision. As the dump truck comes, people clamor over themselves to be the first to look through the heap. Everyone is there, children, men, and women. The kids play, riding their bicycles through the area, reminding you that children will be children anywhere.

It’s a horrible life, but it’s also a living so who am I to judge?

It’s hard to put into words what the dump is like. It stressed our whole group out. It made me angry; at myself, at our country, at the Cambodian government. I have trouble processing why I was born into a healthy, safe and supportive community and the people here were not. This place really does defy any sort of logic, any idea of justice. How does one decide who is deserving and who is not and who is it that makes those decisions anyways (If anyone)??? Screwed sense of humor I tell you.

Cambodia is full of these questions. And I’m not sure if there is an answer to why these children are going to spend their lives rummaging through trash and living with diseases while other aren't. Fate? Coincidence? Dumb luck? I guess it depends on your spiritual beliefs and since I don’t really have any, I’m in a bit of a hole here. How do you explain injustice when it’s a matter of circumstance? Blame the government, blame the policy, blame the international system that keeps people in a state of poverty and despair. Do you blame the drug companies that can but won’t provide treatment? Do you blame anyone at all?

An interesting example of this is the Little Sprouts program. Yesterday we visited the program, a Maryknoll program to house orphaned children with HIV/AIDS. This is the program I mentioned at the beginning of my journal, where I met with Kevin the first day I was here. The children were amazing, they look so healthy, chubby even and incredibly energetic. We played with them for about 2 hrs, running and playing with bubbles and it’s hard to believe these children are dying. Most were infected through their mother, and they are tiny for their age. A 5 year old looks like a 3 year old. The funding for their HIV/AIDS treatment comes primarily from the Clinton foundation, along with a host of other organizations. The catch is that they will only provide them until they are 18, and then we shall see what happens. Since the children before never got into their teens, it will be a challenge for organizations to raise and support HIV positive young adults and find work for them in a country where only 10% of university graduates are able to find a job.

Some drug companies use groups like this to test their new drugs, the company getting free testers and the patient’s free medical “care.” I have serious questions about ethics here; a little too guinea piggish here. They do that with sex workers, some of whom we have met and they report that although the companies provide drugs, they give no medical support beyond that nor inform patients of possible side or long term effects.

Ok enough of the depressing stories.

Still having an amazing time, Cambodia is both enchanting and a real bitter taste of the world and all its baggage. But I love it here :-)