A New Moto and the Orphanage

I rented a motorcycle this week. I hadn't ridden one before and traffic is insane here, but I wanted to try it out. It's a little honda, no idea what engine is in it, but it can only get up to about 35-40 but that's a guess since the speedometer (and odometer and fuel gauge) is broken. It came with a helmet and costs $4 a day with no down payment. I got it on Wednesday and have gone for a number of little rides throughout the city. There's one road, Mao Tse Toung Street, that does a loop around the entire city, but I haven't had time to do the whole thing yet. It's a lot of fun. I don't have definite plans for the weekend yet, but the motorcycle is certainly involved. Feels like only a matter of time before I'm taking a trip on that thing to another country or at least other Cambodian cities. Maybe I'll go to Siem Reap again and wander through Angkor Wat again.

Class has gone well. Also on Wednesday I taught a class as the lone teacher for the first time. I didn't think it went well, but the guy observing me seemed to think I did just fine. They were young kids, none older than eight. Their good kids, for the most part, and seemed genuinely interested in learning. I was intimidated standing up there, but you get used to it pretty quickly. One student even gave me the obligatory-overly-cute note saying the class loves me. Quite nice.

The school where I teach is pretty amazing. It's paid for by the Chicago Bulls. They take in kids from rural areas that have no schools and provide educations free of charge. The better part of that is they specifically try and find young women with the idea of educating them before they're sent off to the city to become prostitutes. Prostitution is everywhere here. It's technically illegal but there's virtually no law enforcement here of any kind. I haven't heard anything about gang activity or mafia, it seems as if there are just lower level pimps, as it were, or small groups of them who find young women largely in rural areas, move them to the city and give them $60 plus a month. Then the women send most of the money home, which is enough for about a family of eight in Cambodia. It should be noted the men pimping these women do not kidnap them. They travel through the countryside like businessmen and the vast majority of the time the families hand pick one of their daughters, grand daughters, nieces, etc. to be sent to the city. The families stay put, continue to farm or whatever their trade might be, and get an extra paycheck for the young woman they sent off. From what I gather it seems they typically send off whom they consider to be the most beautiful and also typically they pick a girl in her early teens.

I walk around the city at night and talk to people. People don't speak English well enough to have more than a simple conversation about what they do, who they are, where I'm from, etc. But I do pick up tid bits. The tuk tuk drivers offer drugs of all kinds and always women. "You want boom boom? Big or small?" I walk past opened gates and see men standing in the doorway to a room full of scantily clad women. "Hello, sir. You want lady?"

I like the idea of working for an organization that helps prevent that. It's idealistic but they put their time, money and efforts toward a practical use. I don't know for sure if any of the kids I work with will ever "make" it. If they'll be able to avoid something like being a child prostitute, but it's nice to be a part of something with good intentions and functional effort.