A very special encounter

During lunch by the roadside, we noticed a small shop. Nick told us that it is a shop for leather craftsmanship.

After lunch, we just wanted to take a little stroll through the shop. We didn't want to buy anything because we have been traveling for a year and our backpacks are already quite heavy.

When we entered the shop, the owner approached us and took us on a tour of his shop. At first, we both thought it was a typical sales conversation, but we were proven wrong!

During the conversation with Nhek Sirey Rattana, the owner, he told us how he started his business...

... when he was eleven years old, he lost his parents and became an orphan. From that point on, he had to take care of his younger brother. Since he couldn't work yet, he earned money for himself and his brother by collecting plastic bottles. While he sent his brother to school, he took care of their livelihood and couldn't go to school himself. After some time, he coincidentally met an employee of a German aid organization for orphaned children in Cambodia. This organization financed his schooling and later his vocational training. These four years were very difficult for him as he continued to work while attending school to support his brother. At the beginning, he and his brother shared three t-shirts because that's all they had.

To give back what he himself received as a young orphan, he started taking in orphaned children and children from poor families and providing them with an education after establishing his shop. After completing school, the teenagers have the opportunity to apprentice with him and learn his craft. He covers accommodation and meals during the entire period. When the artworks in which the children and teenagers are involved are sold, they receive a percentage. They can use this as pocket money or send it to their families.

In the 22 years that he has had his shop and has been taking care of the children, he has already given 200 children a better life. Of those, 51 have learned his craft, while others have become, among other things, police officers, lawyers, and bankers.

He also has a donation box in his shop that is exclusively for the benefit of orphaned children and poor children.

Since he bears the costs for the children alone and his business depends on tourism, Corona was a very difficult time for him. During this time, he had to borrow money from his students to ensure their food and education. He is gradually paying back the funds with his current earnings. Now we also understand why he was so grateful for our visit and why our assumption that it was a typical sales conversation was completely wrong!

We had the privilege of meeting a selfless and absolutely warm-hearted person who believes in sharing what he has.

During the conversation, he asked us which country we come from. Since we were the first German tourists in his shop and he is infinitely grateful to the German aid organization that helped him so much back then, it was important for him to give us something as a symbol of his gratitude. He gave each of us a dragon as a symbol of strength. We also wanted to share something with him, but apart from a few bananas, we didn't have anything to share. However, since it's not about material things, but about what you have, we shared our bananas with him. For a brief moment, we wanted to give him all our bananas. But from his stories, it was clear that sharing is what matters most to him in life, so we shared instead of giving. As a farewell gift, we also gave him a 2 euro coin as a keepsake. We had been carrying it with us since leaving home and didn't really know what to do with it. This confirms Madlin's theory once again: Nothing in life happens without reason.

This encounter was very special to us! Not only were we proven wrong and learned that not every conversation in a shop is automatically a sales conversation, but we also got a deep insight into the destiny of a young child. This child is now a mature man who is so grateful that his entire life's work consists of passing on the gratitude, love for others, and care that he himself experienced. A very special encounter for us!