This was during my early days of travelling. Intrigued by one of the largest temple and religious monument complexes in the world with a backdrop of the devastating Khmer dynasty, I left to Cambodia with a friend. I didn’t want to write about this as I thought it was not fair to poverty, but I’ve decided that I’m a cynic.

We had a good time visiting the temples and learned about the new and old dynasties of Cambodia. On the last day, we asked to be brought to a primary school so we could do some charity work for the kids, as we heard they were poor. Also, partly because everyone was doing it. We were prepared and equipped with books, fancy colour papers, pencils and crayons. Kids were seated and materials passed down from first row. We briefed them to each take one set, knowing we will have excess. Guess what? None came back to the front.

I had no issue with not bringing the leftovers home and would have left them with the school anyway. But the question is, why? We analysed this afterwards in front of some bushes in a farm. The land was supposed to be fertile, but why wasn’t it worked on?

I read this story not long ago. There were 2 poor men in a village, both given a mountain of gold and a shovel. On the first day, A dug and sold some gold, bought luxury food and a house for the family. B dug and sold the same amount of gold in the market and bought the same type of food as he usually did for his family. On the second day, both dug more, A bought more food while B hired a worker to dig for him. On the third day, with the help of his worker, B doubled the amount of A. B hired more workers and bought a farm and seeds on the 10th day whilst A was still earning the same amount of money as on the first day. I guess this is a vivid example of why the rich get richer and the poor...