I am almost embarrassed to admit this but after having lived in various countries in the Third World, having seen some pretty awful slum towns outside of Johannesburg, having walked through the “dwellings” of the hill tribes of Issan, having crossed the Thai/Burma border at Mae Sai and seeing the endless rows of begging children with hardly any food or clothes, I have become almost immune to stories of poverty and suffering when I come across them.
That said, the photographs taken recently by Spanish photojournalist Omar Havana at a Cambodian trash dump moved me so much that I felt compelled to share it with the FPA readership. I am not going to post all of the photos here, but they can be accessed at the website of Australia’s ABC News. Some of the photos are very upsetting, even if you are a seasoned traveler of the developing world and have bore witness to scenes of devastating poverty before.
However, you can get a sampling of what is to be expected below. These pictures were captured at a garbage dump a short drive away from Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site and major tourist attraction.
A young boy shows off a bag of blood that he has found in the dump as his meal for the day.
A woman collects water.
Fresh waste arriving.
This will be someone's food for the day.
Life at the dump.