Cambodia's Future

From all accounts of Cambodia's past, it's been difficult. There have been long periods of foreign occupation and civil war. The Cambodian people have suffered. We've heard horrific personal stories from some of the people we've met.

Though, at present, we see the people of Cambodia doing pretty well. They have been very generous and friendly toward us. They appear happy and industrious.

Almost everywhere we look, there is road and building construction. Most of it appears to be state of the art, though there are stories that some is by foreign contractors using foreign labour. Hopefully, most of those stories have a silver lining not seen by some people. The silver lining being in the form of intelligent partnerships and foreign investment,  resulting in mainly local employment and demand for local products and services.

The Cambodian people and government recognize the value of education. We've seen schools everywhere we've gone in the country, with children coming and going in droves, in class, and playing in the school yards. We've seldom seen kids just hanging out on the street.

And there in lies the future of Cambodia. The future is in their children. We've met many children in the past few weeks. They're happy, friendly and intelligent. Many with skills their parents don't have, and learning more every day.

From what we've seen, Cambodia's future looks very bright. The next century could well be theirs.

For the next story in this series, click here:
http://travellingwithsteveandmarlene.blogspot.ca/2017/03/a-scare-in-air-on-cathay-pacific-flight.html