No Accident in Cambodia
I ended my last report with this aside: “If I were to confuse the news with reality, I’d have to deduce that the UK is just like Cambodia, except that it has terrorism and snow.”
Here’s where there is a key difference though. The missus and I were both feeling slovenly over the weekend and by Sunday evening there was no food to cook so we nipped out to the ‘alfresco’ restaurant on our street corner ($1 for the pair of us).
A large crowd of people had gathered just opposite – rubber-neckers enjoying a little local carnage. A cyclo and moto had collided; the injuries had been sustained not by the actual drivers or passengers, but by a hapless passing motodop who stopped to try to calm down the respective parties and had nine bells kicked out of him by the two thugs on the bike.
I observed the scene for half an hour as we waited for and ate our meal. I saw up to a hundred people standing around, blocking the passing traffic; I saw people pushing food-selling carts stop to get a bit of trade whilst the residents of the flats above relaxed on their verandas with drinks to watch the spectacle; I saw the police who inhabit the corner to extract on-the-spot ‘fines’ surreptitiously slip away (Two cops did belatedly show up). What I didn’t see was one single person call an ambulance or even stroll the 50 metres along the road to the nearby hospital with its emergency ward. My girl explained why: if an ambulance is summoned, the first thing the paramedics do is demand an outrageous fee.
If the person cannot or will not pay they will literally drive off, leaving the victim to bleed to death. You see, in the ‘civilized’ world governments pay people a viable wage to serve their citizens – be it health workers, educators, police or civil servants. Here people have to pay to procure those kinds of jobs and they don’t see the work as ‘service’. Whilst individuals might be kind or caring, the system is set up in such a way that there is no one to protect or help you unless you have money. The pagodas used to fulfil the role, and well, but religion was devastated by the Khmer Rouge and modern materialistic values will ensure it never adequately recovers; this therefore leaves the NGOs, too many with suspect agendas and staff who succumb to the prevailing culture of scamming or using altruism to feather one’s own nest.
What you must never ever do in this society is get sick or have an accident. Fire engines [tenders] from the country’s one fire station arrived at the scene where a row of wooden houses was in flames last week. They wouldn’t turn on the hose for less than $100. Then they turned the taps off again, demanding another $100 – five times they did this until the community had no more to give, upon which they went home, leaving 52 houses to perish and 152 families destitute. Fire-fighters get a salary of $20-30 per month from the government.
Few people pay tax in this country – think about that when you whinge about your tax burden. So many people’s lives plummet into desperate poverty and debt when a loved one falls ill. In western society people are vaguely aware that anyone could be knocked down by the proverbial bus tomorrow, but here that possibility is very real and is in one’s face every day. In a society without a welfare system, affordable health care or insurance, it is so common for families who have lived quite happily for years to be suddenly thrown into destitution due to one momentary mishap or unforeseen event. Life really is that capricious and insecure, which is why people tend to live in the moment and put the future in the hands of fate.
Sralang Apasara
