These are some of the gilrls that looked after me virtually every day while I stayed in Phnom Penh. I became friends with them all over the three odd month that I stayed there. Many Barang people don't take the time to talk to the women here they mostly talk at them. I'm constantly amazed at seeing older Western men with a pretty young asian woman who cannot understand a word he's saying while he tells her at length about his stamp collection or how he once replaced a gasket on his 1954 Morris minor classic.

Ask a woman here about her family and friends and you've suddenly got a fast friend. They like it when a western man is genuinely interested and generous to them without wanting anything in return.

In Phnom Penh for example, at my favourite restaurant - the Riverside - the girls adored me simply because I would comfort them when they were upset (the boss was a bastard), joke with them, buy them some fruit or candy from time to time or even doling out paracetamol when they had a headache or whatever. And taking time to listen to their stories of course, some of which are desperately tragic. And yet they endure with brilliant smiles, warm hearts and shining eyes.

These young women have only one day off a month, work 12 hour days and have to put up with rude and impatient Barang who chide them at the slightest error - they expect the girls to understand French, German, English and Swahili for God's sake. What's worse is that if they make a mistake they have to pay for the food sent back to the kitchen themselves. At least once a day a Barang will leave without paying, again the girls have to pay the bill themselves. The Riverside is not that cheap, and a typical bill will be around $10. The girls get paid a paltry $60 a month, about average for a wage in SE Asia of $2 a day.

yechydda,