Cambodia's Human Dump versus Cambodia's Human Dumb

Cambodia's Human Dump

www.Joe.ie

Cambodia has taken its rightful place alongside Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore on the Southeast Asian stop-off trail between Ireland and the land Down Under. Beyond occasional street beggars however, few will witness the full extent of the poverty many Cambodians suffer under.

Steung Meanchey, one of Cambodian capital Phnom Penh’s city dumps, isn’t on the list of attractions most visitors stop off at.

What differentiates Steung Meanchey from other landfill sites around the world is that up until a couple of months ago it had several thousand people living on top of its stinking, smoldering rubbish.
The dump site has, of late, been swamped on all sides by the sprawl of the growing city it serves – largely because of Cambodia's rapidly urbanising population. Competition for space coupled with a government policy of expelling residents and then selling off any piece of land foreign companies or individuals express interest in means there is an ever-increasing number of families forced to live in slums.

Those driven onto or around the periphery of Stueng Meanchey scrape together a living of sorts by sifting through newly arrived truck loads of rubbish for salable recyclables, so the dump acts as both home and workplace. Although Steung Meanhcey has now stopped taking new rubbish, it was still operational when JOE.ie paid a visit.

It stank. The smell makes you want to vomit. It makes you want to tear off your nose and gouge out your sinuses. It’s the sort of smell that makes your eyes water and your breath come in short repulsive gasps and that’s before you even get to the dump itself.
Normally, despite the poverty and hardship seen within its borders, the Cambodian spirit will be writ large across the faces of its people in the form of ever-present, infectious smiles. That optimism-against-the-odds attitude however, looks to have been beaten out of the people of Stueng Meanchey.

The majority of people living in Southeast Asia are close to the poverty line, but Cambodia is at the bottom of the pile by some distance. The dump’s haunted residents are the poorest of the poor – living in a squalor lost to the western world a century ago – and they know it.

Ragged, beaten figures paw hopelessly through the mounds of rubbish in dizzying heat while, bizarrely, herds of long-haired, foul-smelling goats from God knows where scramble bleating through the filth. Sickly, toxic smoke leaking from rumbling underground fires compounds the Dante-esque look of the place.
Living in one of the ramshackle huts perched directly on top of the rubbish heap was a group of young Khmers. The dwelling consisted of a raised platform made out of wooden pallets and posts topped by tattered sheets of blue plastic. It was open at the front and a young woman who looked to be about 18 stood leaning against one of the up-rights.

The shack was tiny – the size of a box-room, and appeared to house four people. A phenomenally scruffy young guy of about 15 popped his head up from the filthy mat he had been napping his day away on and gave a sporadically toothed smile.

The other occupants were two children – one was a small girl who sat staring in clothes which were little more than dirty rags and the other was an infant of less than a year old. The youngest was lying naked on the platform dead to the world. Hundreds of flies crawled undisturbed all over her.
Sandar, the eldest girl, was sister to the teenage guy and mother to the two children. They had been living on Stueng Meanchey for four years. She explained that yes – it was a dangerous place to live and rats sniffed, scratched and nibbled at them while they slept. Yes – disease was, of course, rampant because sanitation was non-existent.

Sandar could have been quite pretty but Stueng Meanchey had left its mark on her. Her face bore a raw looking scar she got when a fellow scavenger accidentally tossed a molten piece of plastic her way. There was little point in wishing the group well before leaving. Their future would be as horrible, debased, and nightmarish as their present.
The authorities have recognised that the dump’s comparatively central location means it could have value for development and as such has started expelling residents and banning scavenging. A new dump has been established further from the centre of Phnom Penh although there too the homeless and the desperate are barred from using it as a means of earning a living.

With their homes and income gone and a total absence of anything resembling a welfare system, the former residents have been left longing after the days when they were permitted to live and work on a filthy, smoldering pile of rubbish that for most of us would look like hell on earth.

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Cambodia's Human Dumb