Survival for Ki Lim and Sang Ly is a daily battle at Stung Meanchey, the
largest municipal waste dump in all of Cambodia. They make their living
scavenging recyclables from the trash. Life would be hard enough without
the worry for their chronically ill child, Nisay, and the added expense
of medicines that are not really working. Just when things seem most
bleak, Sang Ly learns a secret about the hated, ill-tempered woman, the
"the rent collector"-she can read! Reluctantly she agrees to teach Sang
Ly and does so with the same harshness she applied to her collection
duties until they both learn how literacy has the power to instill hope
and transcend circumstance.Based on a true story, set in the abject
poverty of Cambodia against the backdrop of political oppression and the
atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.