Signs from MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

I’m marching so no other parent will have to hear “Mom, I’ve been shot.”

Better hot than tanned!

Yesterday it was 93ºF in Phnom Penh, I believe, and this young woman was waiting at the light beside me. Notice the sweatshirt with the hood up under the helmet, the gloves, even socks with her sandals. And all the other women are like her, all bundled up to avoid the sun and dark skin.

Signs from MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

If the students of Hogwarts can defeat the Death Eaters, U.S. students will defeat the NRA.

Still a Problem

Cambodia is seeking $406 million to accomplish the demining projects it has planned through 2025. The last mines were laid in the 1980s but we still average a casualty every five or six days from the estimated four to five million landmines thought to be still in the ground and from other ERW (Explosive Remnants of War) that is part of the landscape of much of the country. Between 1992 and 2017, 1,000,000 anti-personnel mines were recovered along with 25,000 anti-tank mines, and more than 2,700,000 pieces of ERW. There is still a lot of work to do.

Signs from MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

I can’t even bring peanut butter to school.

Signs from MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

Our blood is on your hands

Notable Quotes

Since 1970, more Americans have died of gun violence, including murders, suicides and accidents (1.4 million), than in all the wars in American history (1.3 million).

~ Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Opinion Columnist

Another Mystery Fruit

The changing seasons have brought another fruit to the streets of Phnom Penh, but I haven’t a clue what it is. It’s bright yellow like a lemon and about the same size but it’s more like a small apple.

Signs from MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

NRA = bloodshed

A Mixture of Cultures

Cambodia is a mix of cultures in some ways. Look at this street sign. First of all, the modern-type of highway sign for controlled access roads contrasts mightily with the chaos of Phnom Penh streets with their thousands of motorbikes, cars, food carts, bicycles, and pedestrians, each going his own way and doing his own thing. Then there is a mixture of languages on the sign: Khmer script and English language script. And beyond the Charles de Gaulle Blvd name, there is the French spelling of “Tchecoslovaquie” for Czechoslovakia. And then there is the KFC culture imposed over everything else. The Kingdom of Wonder….