Every morning at 6:00, a boy who can't be older than 14 arrives to the sidewalk across from our apartment with a large bag and a bike pump. For the next half hour, he inflates about thirty penguins. Then, he sits. A few times an hour, he'll adjust the penguins that moved from their orderly columns and turn them so they face the street. If one is dirty, he'll replace it with a clean one that he wiped down earlier.
His busiest times are before and after school. Over the last four days, I've seen him get six sales. Two to a moto drivers who had a small children, one to a man in a Lexus who wouldn't open his door all the way to inspect the penguin (he even yelled at the boy to back off), two to me, and one to a teenager who arrived to the penguin site immediately after me.
It's almost like a lemonade stand, but the money goes to his family (who, I think, are positioned around Sihanoukville selling the same penguins) and he sits behind the collection all day, 6 am until sunset. I was prepared to pay a dollar for the penguin. It was 5000 Riel ($1.25) so I shelled out the extra cash in support of small business, then noticed the penguins all say "dolphin" in stock script on their sides.
I used to think he attended school during the afternoons because I looked over one day and saw an older man there. Alas, the boy was behind the man's moto, inflating a brand new penguin for the man's son. When I spoke to him, I asked him if he spoke any English. He said, "aht," which means no. It's safe to assume he just works.
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