One woman, whom I’ll refer to as Rumdul, told me a story that particularly touched me. She works to support three children and several family members. Her children know that she does the work at Wat Phnom, she said, but “they don’t say anything because they know that with this they go to high school, they have clothes, they eat.” Once, her daughter really wanted a cell phone for her birthday, and she didn’t have enough money to get it for her, so the night before, she went out to work. She was lucky to get a client who hired her for the night, and when he paid her, he gave her 40000 or 80000 Riel (between $10 and $20, though with the exchange rate it was likely more at the time), much more than she had expected.
