Another Street Scene

I was cycling past a market near my hotel when I saw a woman, lying on the side of the road, feet pointed out to the roadway, head resting on the curb.
It was an obvious position someone would be dragged into if they collased in trafic and were draged them to the side of the road. She had black curly hair and filthy clothes. I couldnt see any blood on her. 
Other western teachers have warned me, as do various websites never to become involved in traffic accidents or altercations here in Cambodia.
If you call an ambulance or get involved, people will say its your fault, you caused it, to get money out of the rich westerner.
This is the third time I have seen someone on the road or side of the road like this.
I went back to the hotel and spoke to one of the staff.
He said if I found the police and told them they would take up two or three hours of my time. And, he said, probably the woman is a drug user and if she has no money for drugs
“she loses her power and lies down like this”.
I got on my bike and rode back to where the woman was. She was now sitting up, staring into space, sonmetimes looking around. I left. In Australia I would have called an ambulance.  How is this country changing my beahaviour?

who helps you if your collapsed on one of Phom Penh's main streets? Nobody. and tourist books and Wetern ex-pats warn you not go get involved or it will be blamed on you and you will be made to pay the cost.
Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s