Posted 701 days ago
What Recession Looks Like in Cambodia
by Samantha Baker Evens of InnerCHANGE Cambodia
A few people have asked me recently how Cambodians are dealing with the “recession.” Recognizing their genuine concern and good hearts, I have searched for a diplomatic and non-melodramatic response, but in this case, the truth is just not reassuring. How are Cambodians responding to the recession? They are dying from it, the slow, silent death of old people and small children from malnutrition as rising food prices cause families to eat less with less variety. Crises like these are hard on all of us, but disproportionately affect the poor. Since Cambodia came out of war and oppression in 1991, the people have benefitted from development, and a new middle class has grown, but the last two years have brought high inflation. Families that were finally stabilizing are now falling back into poverty.
Here’s What’s Happening
The wealthy (with whom I include myself and anyone with the ability to read this electronically) statistically spend roughly ten percent of our income on food. The poor spend around 80% of their money on food, and the very poor, those living on a dollar a day or less, spend their entire income on food. In Cambodia, we have experienced roughly 20 percent inflation in the last year on average. The price of chicken went up 60 percent but the price of magazines only went up 10 percent. For my poor neighbors who spend roughly 80% of their money on food and are not in the habit of buying magazines, 20% inflation is a low estimate. Food prices have gone up much more than anything else; rice, our staple, has doubled in price in the last year.
Why is this happening?
There is lots of speculation as to why this is happening, but as far as I understand it, the price of food has gone up worldwide due to the perfect storm of natural disasters and environmental degradation mixed with growing markets in China and India and the demand for more biofuel. Because of this, in countries like Cambodia, it is more lucrative to sell our rice crop to countries like the US and Japan, who can afford to pay a little more and buy in bulk, than to sell it to our own population. Also, we are reliant on food imports that come by road, so prices have gone up with the cost of fuel. And now, countries that used to sell us food are putting restrictions on exports to keep their own inflation under control. The US doesn’t see how drastic the food price hikes are because the government and multi-nationals have the buying power to make all sorts of deals to keep food reserves up and prices down.
More Costly For Some than Others: Stories of People I Know
For my family, this inflation means that we don’t go on as many outings on weekends. I have curbed my book addiction, and we don’t buy cheese anymore. Our food budget has jumped from 20 to 30% of our income, but my son was still able to start preschool this year at the age of three. We are putting off replacing our rusty little car for another couple years.
My former language teacher, Sophea, is a single woman who works as a secretary and lives with her parents and siblings. Her father drives a taxi, her mother and sister are cooks, and her brother is in high school. She says, “When we sit down to eat at night, if we have all eaten and there is rice left over, my brother (who plays soccer) looks at my father to see if he is in a good mood. If he is smiling, then he will let my brother take a second helping of rice, but if he is frowning then my brother isn’t bold enough to ask.” They are eating less vegetables and meat and more rice. Sophea had plans to go to university to study business administration, but has put her plans on hold for the last two years.
For Huon, the cook for the InnerCHANGE team office, a single woman in her forties, who works seven hours a day five days a week, making twice what a factory worker would make for six full days of work, the inflation means that she is riding her motorbike less, eating less and choosing cheaper food. She is not saving at the moment despite the need for surgery in the near future and the fact that she has no one to take care of her when she is old. She says, “I know that I should save some money in case things get worse, but then I see my neighbors who are hungry and I have to share, or how could I be a Christian? I just have to trust God for the future.”
For Bora, a motorbike taxi driver who came to Phnom Penh to work while leaving his wife and child to farm their land, the rising cost of gasoline, food, and rent in the city has meant that he cannot send money home to his family. Additionally, two rice crops were ruined by a drought one year and a countrywide locust infestation the next. The family will have to borrow money to buy seed next year. Bora’s daughter is seven but won’t start school again this year. He used to go back to his land every other weekend to see his family, a two-hour trip, but he can’t afford to now. His wife is going to look for work in a factory in their province and leave their daughter at home with a grandmother. Bora says, “The villages are empty of everyone except old people and young children. Everyone is going to the cities to find work.”
For Huon’s neighbor, an HIV-positive widow who works in a cigarette factory and feeds six people—herself, her elderly mother, and her four young kids (aged between 2 and 8)—on a dollar day, the rising cost of food means that the family is eating only rice with a little bit of dried fish on top once a day. This will probably result in her becoming ill again because the AIDS drugs she is taking don’t work if the person isn’t well-nourished. Getting ill would put her job at risk. Realistically, it may also mean that at least one of her younger children will die before the age of five. Her kids are often sick and her mother has a persistent cough that won’t go away. None of her kids are in school or can read.
What We Can Do About It
My fear is that Christians in the US, rocked by natural disasters and shaken by the housing crash, are only going to see suffering in the people close to them, like those in coastal Texas. I have already heard good, faithful people of God refer to “taking care of our own first.” While this is an understandable reaction to this stressful and uncertain time, Americans rocked by natural disasters still have more options and more resources available to them than do poor Cambodians. Non-governmental organizations that serve these people are hurting for funds because giving from the “rich West” is down. The World Food Programme has pulled out of Cambodia due to lack of funding. They were providing school meals that not only kept kids in school, but also kept them healthy and able to learn. People who used to give are hoarding their resources and isolating themselves from the world for protection in the face of financial instability. But neglecting people who truly need help when times are tough because they live far away or look different is contrary to the message of the Bible. What would have happened if the widow, a non-Israelite, hadn’t fed Elijah during the famine (1 Kings 17)? What would have happened if Peter hadn’t responded to his vision on the rooftop and refused to go into the house of a Roman centurion (Acts 10)? What would have happened if the Good Samaritan didn’t get down off his donkey to help a Jew (Luke 10)? (At the least, it wouldn’t have made for a very interesting parable.) So, what can we practically do?
Give generously. In the upside-down Kingdom of God, the antidote to worrying about not having enough is to give more. In biblical parlance for this is called “making purses for yourselves that will not wear out” (Luke 12). When we start to feel tight about money, we up our tithe (by tithe we mean that which goes directly to alleviate poverty, not to our church or missionary support). It is hard to pity the state of your finances when you are authorizing a payment for a goat for a farmer in Zimbabwe. If you haven’t before, try it and see: “Heifer Project”: http://www.heifer.org/, “TEAR Australia”: http://www.tear.org.au/, “World Vision”:http://www.worldvision.org are a few I like. Recession is the time to give more knowing that the poor will be more adversely affected and vulnerable than we are.
Write Emails. Groups like “World Vision”:http://www.worldvision.org, “the ONE Campaign”:http://www.one.org/, and “Micah Challenge”:http://www.micahchallenge.org/ are lobbying the government to keep their promises of aid and debt forgiveness to the developing world. It is easy to feel that these big issues cannot be changed, but you would be surprised what a few million emails can do.
The reality of the situation in Cambodia might seem daunting, especially considering that things will probably get worse before they get better. But if we share, even from our meager abundance, good things can happen, and God will bless our efforts.
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