
Sugarcane

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On this street corner in Boeung Tum Pun, you can have your phone repaired while you’re at the dentist.
Cambodian monks make rounds every morning, going through a neighborhood to beg for rice and alms for the poor and for themselves. They are very low-key, just standing silently in front of a home or shop to invite the owner to donate. Click here to see some monks on the street.
Pope Francis
Solidarity is not the sharing of crumbs from the table, but to make space at the table for everyone.
This is a corner of the front yard of the present Maryknoll office we are renting. It’s an unpaved corner where our guards grow aloe vera, bananas, pineapples, jack fruit, or whatever else strikes their fancy. The circle draws your attention to the water meter for our house, just sticking up out of the ground, a little bit near the fence, but not really trying to be out of the way.
There are no Cambodian wiring and plumbing codes–at least none that are enforced–so everything like installing water to a house is done by your brother-in-law and he puts the meter wherever he feels like it. Or wherever the plastic pipe that he brought extends to.
This is a close-up of the water meter. It’s set and half buried in a mound of concrete, out in the open where anyone can fool with it. Note that, oddly, there is a cut-off valve on either side of the meter!
Our Christmas celebration for the English Catholic Community was very different this year–as was almost everything in 2020. Click here to see some photos from the Christmas masses we celebrated.