Author: Charles Dittmeier

Most of the time my photos of wagons and carts and motos show them full of food to sell or goods to be carried. Here is a guy at the end of the day with just a few cabbages left on his wagon. I hope he sold all the rest and he feels good going home to his family.

It used to be quite common to see many motorcycles and bicycles parked outside of shops and other establishments. Not so much now. Twenty years ago, it was a significant achievement to get a motorcycle. Now everyone wants a car. That is a huge problem because there is no place to park them.

The photo and item about the Water Problems was meant to be posted yesterday but I got so busy that after I prepared the photo, I forgot to post it here on the website. In posting tonight, I see now that I also missed April 28th! Sorry! It’s been a bad week!

Phnom Penh is located at the confluence of the Mekong, Tonle Sap, and Bassac Rivers so it has access to a lot of water. What it doesn’t have is the infrastructure to purify and distribute the water. There has been a massive building boom in the last ten years and water supplies that were inadequate before that started are even more inadequate now. Many of the new boreys (gated communities) go without water for large parts of the day or even for a day at a time because they are located on the outskirts of the city. But even those of us in the city are experiencing more and more shortages of water. The Maryknoll office where I live has maintained its water supply but at the deaf office there is often not enough water to reach the second floor. I keep a bucket of water handy in that bathroom there.

There is rising concern about an increase in infections of dengue fever in several provinces, including Phnom Penh. Large-scale outbreaks of dengue fever occur in Cambodia about every five years. The last was in 2019 so there is a fear that this is the beginning of a build-up that will peak in 2024. Dengue is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito which is a daytime mosquito.