Dozens of families from the Battambang province of Cambodia have developed a flourishing company: selling homemade banana chips with foreign and Cambodian tourists.
The wives and children of the commune of Kdol Daun Teav of Battambang earn additional money by cutting bananas, by dispensing them to dry on bamboo skewers and then selling them as snacks to the people who go to the region to visit Wat Ek Phnome, a temple of the Angkor era.
Make the banana tokens requires patience, according to Nuon Chamnan. It takes a lot of time to peel bananas, and some days, it must peel and cut bananas until midnight to respond to orders.
“Sometimes there are so many foreign visitors and there are no remains for other customers,” she said.
A trip to Wat Ek Phnom is an excursion of a popular day for people staying in the city of Battambang, which is about 9 km (5 miles) from Kdol Daun Teav, where residents cultivate rice and collect fish from the Sankae river.
In recent years, Word has circumvented that tourists can see the traditional livelihoods of Cambodian villagers while buying a single snack.
Nuon Chamnan said that it cuts around 50 bananas per day and can make around 50,000 riels (US $ 12.50). The company does not require much initial investment-just a lot of work, she said.
“It is not as if we do with the machines,” said another banana seller, Khun Srey Lek.
“We use our hands to do it normally, so it’s not tiring,” she said. “We do it from morning to night, so we do it lightly, like a house chore.”
Translated by Yun Carean. Edited by Matt Reed.