Pay Day

Well, I got paid today - $250 USD in cold hard cash.  It's quite a novel experience for me as most of the IT consultancy work i've done here for NGO's has been voluntary.  I really don't mind working for free in Cambodia, the IT industry is very immature and typically NGO's are crying out for help with their infrastructure with little or no IT budget available to them, and they truly do a wonderful job which is worth supporting.  But, getting paid did get me thinking about the vast disparity in wealth here.  I was paid $25 USD / day for my IT consultancy (IT is not valued very highly here).  Not much, I here you say, well my meagre $25 would be a very good Cambodian middle-class wage.  Here are a few comparisons, and remember that ~20% of Cambodians live on less than $1 USD per day ie: below the poverty line.

Policeman                         $1 / day (+ "traffic fines" bonus)
Tuk Tuk Driver                   $2 - $10 / day (depending on season)
NGO staff (Cambodian)    $10 - $100 / day (depending on experience)
NGO staff (International)   $100 - $1000 / day (depending on experience)

Although my rate has jumped to the lofty heights of $65 / day for my next 3 week contract, it's lucky that Em is able to support us both this year (there's no doubt that my sporadic paid foray's into IT wouldn't even pay the rent !)