The Rent Collector (2 page)

Since there are no structures allowed within the center of the dump itself, my view of the place is unobstructed and occasionally quite spectacular, especially after a hard rain has banished the constant haze. In fact, if anyone tries to build a permanent shelter within the dump proper, it is torn down by government workers (hired thugs). As such, the massive kingdom of Stung Meanchey is an encircled fortress, guarded by tin and cardboard castle walls on every perimeter.

I don’t intend to portray the place as miserable or entirely without joy. On the contrary—in spite of its hardships, there are slivers of time when life at the dump feels normal, almost beautiful. Pigs forage in the dirt lanes, children pick teams and play soccer, mothers and fathers banter about their day, babies are born, life presses on.

It is the beautiful times I cherish.

This morning I stand outside and survey my surroundings, hoping to divine what might be in store. The smoke is tolerable, subdued by a brief thundershower last night, and I nod at my distant neighbors already busily about their daily activities. I brush the swarming flies away from our cistern, scoop a pan of water, and then hurry back to clean up our bed mat where Nisay sleeps. He has not been well and so, for many weeks, my first morning job has been to wash away his diarrhea. It may sound disgusting, but in a place of swirling odors, we hardly notice. Frankly, cleaning up his mess is the least of our problems.

I tease that we live by a river, but there is truth to my jest. When the rains come, they leach through the rotting trash, causing foul liquids to ooze, mix, and trickle into noxious streams. The waters splash and then dry, leaving ugly, black stains that won’t go away for days. They cause our skin to rash. Mostly they just stink.

Even though it is not wise to touch such polluted waters, they’re difficult to avoid. You see, we haven’t yet figured out a way to move around this place without touching the ground.

But toxic water is not our greatest danger. That would be the fires.

As I said, today the smoke is tolerable. Other days, it hangs thick in spots, making it impossible to see beyond the first rise of garbage. There is both smoke and fire because as the mountains of garbage around us decompose, they form and trap methane gas. Beneath the weight of the piles, the temperatures rise until the gas ignites and burns. Stung Meanchey is literally always on fire, and it is almost impossible to put out the flames. Monstrous government bulldozers will push the garbage around, hoping to reduce the hazard, but ironically, they don’t care who they run over and bury in the process.

We finally get extended relief from the smoke when the rainy season begins—but then the brown rivers form and . . . well, it is perplexing to live at Stung Meanchey.

We never know whether or not to hope for rain.

*****

The Cow knocks on our door early.

We don’t call her
Cow
to her face, though I hardly think she would notice or care. She might even wear the title as a badge of honor. Her real name is Sopeap Sin, which means
the kind and pretty one.
Her parents were delusional and blind.

Sopeap is an abrupt, bitter, angry woman who has lived at Stung Meanchey longer than anyone can remember. There is a story told by some—perhaps myth, perhaps not—that claims she was the illegitimate child of Vadavamukha, a sky god with the body of a man and the head of a horse. (Having a horse-headed father would explain a lot.) The myth says that for years he hid his daughter in a trash can to conceal the evidence of his escapades from his wife, Reak Ksaksar Devy, the blood goddess. One day, however, when Reak became suspicious, Vadavamukha hurled the can from the sky. It landed at Stung Meanchey with Sopeap inside—and she has been here ever since.

Of course, I don’t really believe the myth. A sky god, horse head or not, would never waste a completely good garbage can on Sopeap Sin.

On a rare occasion, the woman will salvage trash like the rest of us. Most days, however, her time is spent sleeping, swearing, or drinking cheap rice wine. Yet at the first of every month—the only time Sopeap seems to be remotely sober—she also collects rent for several landowners from the poor families who live in the huts that circle Stung Meanchey. Besides
the Cow,
we also call her
the Rent Collector.

Sopeap wastes no time.

“You have my money?” she demands, sounding like an angry schoolmaster, the kind who long ago silently smothered patience and concern.

I reach into my pocket and pull out our entire fortune, all the money we have to our name, and hand it over (except for just enough that I have kept out to buy today’s dinner).

She knows better than to waste time counting.

“This is not enough. I need the rest!”

My hesitation betrays a feeble excuse poised on my tongue. She doesn’t wait for my fibs but instead begins to berate me.

“Lazy child! Sang Ly, I have people begging me for this space.”

It would be funny if it weren’t true—not the first part, as Ki and I are anything but lazy, but the fact that others wait to get into Stung Meanchey. It’s a notion that causes me to grin.

“What do you smile at?” she bellows. “If you can’t pay, I will have no choice but to move others into this spot. You foolish girl!”

I want to kick this cow in the udder, but instead I clasp my hands together in a gesture of mercy, a simple plea for understanding.

“We had the money, but Nisay has not been well. We had to buy him medicine this week, American medicine, to see if it would help.”

“Foolishness!” she hisses.

When I’m in a cheerful mood, I will often count the number of times Sopeap uses the word
foolish.
This morning, however, she is especially irritated, and so I try to be serious.

“We will have our rent today, I assure you. Ki Lim is already out working the trucks. He will gather more than enough.” I straighten and stand tall, attempting to project confidence.

“In a single day? Impossible!” she declares. I nod, but in a circular motion, so as to neither agree nor disagree. She watches my head circle, takes a drink from her bottle, and then swallows hard.

“Sang Ly,” she exclaims irritably, “the landowners expect their money and I have my own obligations.” She turns in disgust, then calls back to me, “I will be back tonight.”

At the dump we don’t take fashion too seriously, but as she waddles away, I clench my teeth to stifle my laughter. No matter the time of year, even in the hottest weather, the woman never removes the hideous brown socks that sag ridiculously around her already thick ankles.

Somehow she senses my amusement because, without turning around, she reinforces her threat.

“Tonight!”

Chapter Two

The sun at Stung Meanchey shows no prejudice. It scorches the old and young, the fat and skinny, the humble and proud. Ki once said he noticed that it only shines on the poor in this particular spot of Cambodia, and he’s right—but only because nobody rich lives at the dump. The sun’s heat is especially hard on the pickers—those who sort through the garbage—since most wear long-sleeved shirts and full-length pants, tucked into heavy rubber boots, to protect themselves from the flies, filth, and smoldering fires.

The work is grueling in this place where Phnom Penh’s poorest families struggle to build a life from what others throw away—a life where the hope of tomorrow is traded to satisfy the hunger of today.

To make it through the long hours, many will rest in the early afternoon while they eat lunch beneath makeshift lean-tos. The shelters are temporary and consist of a cardboard floor (cardboard is plentiful at the dump), bamboo poles or tree branches tied together to form a skeletal shell, and a cloth or canvas canopy stretched across the top to provide shade.

Though most of the shelters are rudimentary and crude, some are elaborate, even works of art. And a shelter that has required effort to build sometimes becomes more than just a temporary place to rest; it becomes an oasis in the filth, a gathering place.

I have noticed this phenomenon especially among the female pickers. Perhaps it’s a subconscious nesting competition. Jorani Kahn will use a floral sheet instead of dirty canvas. Dara Neak will layer many pieces of cardboard on the ground to offer a softer place to sit. Sida Son will carry in a larger pot of water for those she invites to join her. Even at Stung Meanchey—perhaps
especially
at Stung Meanchey—people still long for social acceptance.

In spite of these efforts, attempts at permanence are fleeting.

The drivers of the monster bulldozers that push the trash into piles at night will sometimes work around the shelters, leaving them intact for several days. Other times, a beautiful shelter, painstakingly crafted during the better part of a morning, may be nothing but a mix of flattened hope and moldering trash a day later. It’s a lesson that is learned early at Stung Meanchey—and yet, it’s a lesson not of discouragement but rather of persistence. Just as ants do when their nest is disturbed, we return, survey the damage, and then without hesitation immediately get to work rebuilding.

Though many of the shelters are inviting, even charming, no clear-thinking person would ever dare to stay the night—unless waking up beneath a mountain of smoldering, stinking, smothering trash sounds like a fun way to die. Ki says his friend’s cousin’s brother was killed in this manner, but I think he’s just teasing me, trying to scare me into being extra careful as I travel the dump’s paths. Whenever I ask him to point out the friend or the cousin, he promises he will, but he never does.

*****

As I arrive with my child at the area where the shelters have been built, on a plateau of trash above the dumping trucks, I try to spot Ki. It’s just after noon, too early for most of the pickers to have taken their first break, so the trucks are still swarmed. Though I recognize some of the pickers, there are many I don’t know. Faces at the dump constantly change.

I have packed Ki’s rice into his lunch tin, except for a little I mashed up to feed Nisay, and when I finally see my husband, I wave the pail in the air with my free hand to get his attention. He motions that he’ll come momentarily. With Nisay’s weight putting my left hip to sleep, and my right hip about to follow suit, we look for a place to sit.

“Hey, Sang Ly! Over here!”

It’s Lucky Fat. When the boy sees us, he hollers for us to join him. He’s built a rather crude shelter, but I humbly accept his offer and lay Nisay on the cardboard in the shade beneath the canopy. My baby fusses when I put him down, but I let him be, hoping the heat of the day will soon coax him back to sleep.

“Are you bringin’ Ki lunch?” Lucky asks, with more animation than any human being living in a dump should be able to display.

“Surely. Do you have lunch yourself?”

He nods, looking pleased that I would ask.

I don’t know Lucky’s real name, but I have no doubt that he popped out of the womb both plump and happy. Unfortunately, since he’s an abandoned child, no parents are around to ask. He’s called
Lucky
because he has an uncanny knack for finding money lost amongst the garbage. He’s called
Fat
because . . . well, he’s fat. Many say that Lucky looks just like a grinning Chinese Buddha (not the Cambodian Buddha, who is quite skinny). Lucky takes the comparison kindly and, for the past year, has been collecting Buddha statues he finds amongst the trash. Now, a dozen months later, his hut is so brimming with broken Buddhas that a newcomer might conclude the child is religious, obsessive, or desirous to become a monk.

In spite of his nickname, Lucky’s life has not been easy. He was left at the dump at just seven years of age, shortly after we arrived. Although I could never imagine abandoning my own child, I have seen enough desperation in my life to understand the mind-set of those who do. However, what is unfathomable to me is that with an array of choices available for leaving a child—orphanages, monasteries, foreign medical clinics—how could any mother choose to leave her child at the dump, a place where useless things are thrown away?

Still, Lucky has survived admirably.

He was taught how to sort trash by Prak Sim, another boy orphan four years older. Even with the difference in their ages, the two became fast friends, working together, living as brothers. Eight months ago, however, Prak Sim was run over and killed by a garbage truck. If it were me and I had lost my family in such a tragic manner, in a place so desperate and bleak, I would have chased after the truck and thrown myself beneath the massive and heartless tires as well. Not Lucky. To this day, he remains cheerful.

As Ki approaches, struggling to carry his bag, Lucky’s grin is wider than normal.

“Either my husband has resorted to gathering rocks, or it’s been a very good day,” I say to Lucky, as I wait for Ki to fill in with his explanation. He wastes no time.

“It was the second truck this morning. It carried a load of bent pipe connectors. We could all hear them clanking against the sides as they came out, and the pile was swarmed; I was right there and gathered up a good number of them.”