Village life

This morning I booked myself onto a 2 hour walk and talk tour of a local village. I am not a fan of tours taking tourists to see the poverty stricken in any country but had read about this charity before coming out here. An Australian couple run a spa hotel employing 30 of the villagers, they run a sewing co-operative employing more villagers and they run the tour group. Profits from all are put into their charity, Husk, to help the villagers with education, water purity and health education.

The maximum number on each tour is 8 but this morning it was just me which was great. Two rules; I was told not to give anything if anyone begged and to ask permission to take photos.
I learnt all about village life as well as life in Cambodia in general.

People generally buy twice a day from the market as, although most have electricity they can't afford a fridge. The food on the village market stall was covered with flies.

Instead of using plant leaves to wrap things plastic is now commonly used thereby causing litter. There are no rubbish collections from villages so if they fill the Husk bin and take it to the main road for collection Husk will give them 1kg of rice.

There was high infant mortality amongst the under 5s until these water purification units were installed.