Vendor girls hide behind a lion at the top of East Mebon, Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Seth Rosenblatt (c) 2006.
When I was looking at my Angkor Wat photos, trying to decide which one to put up today, I first thought these girls were part of a group of students the FMA and I ran into. Their Cambodian English teacher had taken them on a field trip to the ruins in hopes of meeting foreigners to interview and practice on. Then I checked the EXIF information more carefully and realized that the shot was taken too early in the day for it to be those kids; instead, they had to be vendors who waited for sweaty tourists at the top of the temple and tried to sell them water.
India quickly cured me of my surprise at school-aged kids working the streets, but the disappointment mixed with shame and hope that somehow, these kids will have a better future than their parents never went away.