Homeless kids
From the window of my room in my guesthouse I look down onto this spot where some families sleep every night. They have to move on in the morning because there are shops there. When the shops open the homeless families must be gone.
The kids usually get washed with water from bottles. I don't know if they use soap. I don't see any. They seem to wear the same clothes day after day. Their skin is clean but their clothes are dirty.
When they want to pee the kids usually go over to the road and do it. I haven't seen what they do when they poo. There is never any on the footpath. They must have somewhere they can go.
During the day I don't think the kids go to school because I still see them around begging. They wouldn't have much money and kids in Cambodia have to take money to school to pay the teacher every day or they can't come to school.
Some of the older boys, teenagers, ride cyclos which are tricycle taxis but I don't see them getting much work.
I see them at times with a brush looking for people who want their shoes shined. Sometimes I see homeless people collecting recyclable materials. The kids and the adults do this. But mostly I see them begging—maybe a mum and a baby, maybe a few kids together, maybe a grandma. They often hang around the money changers and ask for money after people get some money changed.
When I walk around the streets in Phnom Penh, I see many families and many kids like this. There are some kids who don't even have families. They just live on the streets with their friends.
Perhaps there are over a hundred homeless people in the few blocks near my guesthouse. Cambodia is a very poor country. Maybe these people are the poorest in Cambodia.
The kids usually get washed with water from bottles. I don't know if they use soap. I don't see any. They seem to wear the same clothes day after day. Their skin is clean but their clothes are dirty.
When they want to pee the kids usually go over to the road and do it. I haven't seen what they do when they poo. There is never any on the footpath. They must have somewhere they can go.
During the day I don't think the kids go to school because I still see them around begging. They wouldn't have much money and kids in Cambodia have to take money to school to pay the teacher every day or they can't come to school.
Some of the older boys, teenagers, ride cyclos which are tricycle taxis but I don't see them getting much work.
I see them at times with a brush looking for people who want their shoes shined. Sometimes I see homeless people collecting recyclable materials. The kids and the adults do this. But mostly I see them begging—maybe a mum and a baby, maybe a few kids together, maybe a grandma. They often hang around the money changers and ask for money after people get some money changed.
When I walk around the streets in Phnom Penh, I see many families and many kids like this. There are some kids who don't even have families. They just live on the streets with their friends.
Perhaps there are over a hundred homeless people in the few blocks near my guesthouse. Cambodia is a very poor country. Maybe these people are the poorest in Cambodia.
posted by OznAsia at
12:15 pm
