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When I was a kid, the Tastee Bread company trucks—emblazoned with the slogan “Baked while you sleep”—rumbled around early-morning Louisville delivering bread to the grocery stores. This woman’s bread is also probably baked while everyone is sleeping, but she doesn’t have any truck with a logo and has to be content with singing out “Num bung,” the Khmer word for bread, to alert her customers.
Mother’s little helper.
Different fruits can mark the change of seasons in Cambodia but not coconuts. They’re available all year round and just about everywhere. There are cheap, nutritious, and delicious so they are a favorite with much of the population. Here are three coconut vendors along Street 63 in Phnom Penh.
From the vendors’ point of view, the downside of coconuts is that they are big, heavy, and bulky and you can’t stack them like you can cases of beer. The white coconuts have had the green outer hull cut off, mainly for a better-looking product although cutting off the hull also helps the coconuts to chill faster when you throw them into the ubiquitous orange coolers.
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Why do we only rest in peace? Why don’t we live in peace, too? |
Quite a few fruits are in season now. Today I saw pineapples being sold on the streets. Vendors like these tend to stay on the outskirts of the city, probably because it’s closer to home in the rural areas and probably because the police hassle them less there for bribes.
“I esteem foreigners no better than other people–nor any worse. They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them. And inasmuch as the continent of America is comparatively a new country, and the other countries of the world are old countries, there is more room here, comparatively speaking, than there is elsewhere; and if they can better their condition by leaving their old homes, there is nothing in my heart to forbid them coming, and I bid them all God speed.”
Abraham Lincoln 13 February 1861
The world has never before this present decade experienced the plight of so many millions of refugees on the move in so many different parts of the world, all at the same time.
“Refugees are not numbers. They are people who have faces, names, stories, and need to be treated as such.” ~ Pope Francis
The Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns has some excellent materials for this day. Click here to find interesting and informative resources about refugees.
It’s not just the oranges that are in season now. Pomelos are also plentiful and they are one of my favorite fruits.
I have mentioned before that one of the ways to tell the seasons here is to note which fruits are being offered on the street. That’s one of the only real indicators since it’s always hot and everything is always blooming. Now it’s the turn of the oranges to appear. Most of them are from Battambang, renowned for oranges, and they are all green in color, not orange. They are good, though, and once in season, many vendors are selling the oranges by the kilo (about $1.75) or as bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Medical practices vary tremendously around the world, depending on the education and literacy levels of a society, the resources available, the level of government attention, etc. Click here for a glimpse at one medical practice in Cambodia.