This is a hard post to write. I’ve taught a generation of law students about challenges faced by developing countries, as well as traveled in some of the poorest countries in the world, so none of the things I’ve experienced here in Cambodia come as a surprise. But it is always tough to see, smell, and experience the reality.
I’m not standing in a classroom; I’m not reading an article in my office in Portland. Instead I’m squeezed into a dusty bus with people who will never own a car, bumping along a rutted road past wooden shacks, piles of trash, and neglected street dogs. I’m buying a few postcards at a tourist site from a seven year old girl who should be in at a desk, but her school may not have enough teachers and her teachers may not get paid. I’m stepping over the charred trunks of trees where the forest was cut and burned to plant cashews in the charred red soil that people in the United States will buy at New Seasons in their trail mix.
