For some reason the idea of visiting an orphanage and see all those poor little orphans triggers something inside your heart. You picture yourself surrounded by these severely traumatized orphans, children that have never received any love in their lives, possibly abused and neglected and so you say "Yes, why not".
All of a sudden you feel the need to visit the kids and give them one moment of joy in their miserable lives. You ask your tuk-tuk driver where you can buy some toys and candy to bring. Than your tuk-tuk driver tells you that the orphanage needs rice more than anything. If you want to buy toys and candy that's up you, but you should also buy rice. Good idea! Your driver tells you that donating rice is better than giving money, because the manager might stick the money in his own pocket. And what else can you do with rice, other than feeding it to the children, right?
You ask your tuk-tuk driver how much rice they need and he says: "Up to you, but maybe 2 bags". You ask him if he knows a place where you can buy rice for a cheap price and of course he knows a (his brother's) place.
You buy 2 bags of rice for $60. You still want to go to the market and buy some toys and candy. Maybe buying some pens, rulers and notebooks is also good idea, because you understand the importance of education. "Up to you" says your driver.
At the orphanage you're welcomed by all the children. They all come running to you and surround you before you get the chance to get out of your tuk-tuk. This overwhelms you and you decide that this is the warmest welcome you've ever experienced in your life.
While you give your toys and candy the rice is being unloaded from the tuk-tuk and disappears out of sight. The children keep surrounding you, asking you questions in English and touching you. You feel the guest of honor so you decide to stay the whole afternoon and play with the kids and take pictures. Before you know it your card is full and you realize you've taken over 300 photo's of the kids.
The children tell you that they want extra study, but there's no money. So before you leave you decide to donate another $50, just because you're in such a good mood and the children are so lovely. When you get into your tuk-tuk some of the kids are still holding your hand and you even see that one of them has a tear. Ow, how sad. But you must go now and you'll hurt their feelings because you're leaving. You wish you could stay forever.
Around the corner you cross another tuk-tuk with 2 bags of rice, some toys and candy on board, but you don't notice this because you still have the image of this child with the sad face in your vision.
But why was this one child so sad when you where leaving? Is it traumatized? Is it being abused? God* knows!
Well, the minute before you left this poor child got into a fight with another poor child over the amount of candy that they were able to grab from you. The other child got one more. That's all!
So what else happened that you're not aware of? Well, a lot more! But let's stick to the things that are relevant to this story, like why there's a shop that sells rice located next to the orphanage:
- After the tuk-tuk driver delivered you at your guesthouse he went back to the orphanage to get his 50% of the rice.
- After that he went back to his brother's shop to return the rice and get his $10 commission.
- And why again was there a rice shop next the orphanage? NO! That can't be true!
Yes, I'm very sorry to inform you that also the other bag of rice you donated was sold that same day! - (This one is optional) At the end of the day all children were picked up buy their parents and went home to watch TV or attend a very expensive private English school.
NO! If you would've just informed yourself before you came to Cambodia . . .
DON'T VISIT AN ORPHANAGE IN CAMBODIA. YOUR NOT HELPING THE COUNTRY ! ! !
* may be replaced with any other of your favorite local or international heroes.
* may be replaced with any other of your favorite local or international heroes.
