Hi there,

I usually get up around 7:00 in the morning and sit outside my hostel. I have made friends with a group of four kids that are staying at the hostel with their father. They are cousins and are staying at the hostel to help clean the rooms and do laundry. The kids are between the ages or 13 and 15 years old.

I sit outside in the morning and joke with these kids. These kids only speak a few words of English and we can only communicate through my English-Khmer dictionary. I teach them English words in the morning and they teach me some Khmer. We usually end up laughing more then we learn. It is a great way to wake up. I don’t even need to drink coffee here, because I’m so energized.

I had a long discussion with the children’s father. These four kids aren’t going to school at all. These kids went to school for many eight months in their life, but had to stop. Their father told me that it costs them $0.50 US a child every day. Everywhere I go in this country, there are kids working in shops and selling on the street. I heard a story from a man that said that only the rich kids go to good schools. He told me that the government schools are often corrupt. The wages they pay are very poor, so the teachers are low quality. The good teachers, tutor students instead of teaching in a government school. There are many stories that people just pay the teachers for kids to pass exams. I’ve heard some crazy stories.

That said, I am heart broken to think that these four nice kids may never get a chance to go to school. They are such nice kids and work hard around the hostel. The cycle will never end, until someone notices and takes and interest in helping them for no pay. It is very difficult to understand and accept. I’m finding it very hard, especially when I start to know these kids better. I’m also finding it hard not to get upset at the many children in North America that skip classes and drop out of school. They should spend one day in the dump or on the street selling postcards and maybe realize the advantage they have been given in life. Tell me the answer to all this.

Love Gerry

$.50 US a day may not sound like much money to us, but this is a country where many people many less than $30 a month. Even in the tourist industry, people only get paid $30 to $40 a month on average and work from 10:00am to 12:00am. There are no laws that require vacation time and/or extra pay for overtime work. If people are lucky, they get one day off work. Many only get two days off work a month. School is also time away from the kids earning money. That is the reality.