Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Solar Power

It’s not really obvious in this photograph, but the rectangular fixture on the top rear of this tuk-tuk is a solar panel.  I’m not sure what it is powering.  Quite often these tuk-tuks don’t even have headlights or taillights.  Maybe this driver has hooked up some small LED lights inside the passenger compartment.

Rainy Riding

Yesterday I rode nineteen miles–just within the city of Phnom Penh—on the back of a motorcycle taxi going to meetings, visiting a hospital, etc.  That is not fun.  As an extra exciting element, we had a tremendous rainstorm while I was out.  My motorcycle taxi driver (above) and I could see it coming so I stopped and bought a cheap plastic rain poncho like he is putting on, and then when the first drops started we pulled off and covered up before resuming the ride.  If you’re on the back of a motorcycle, the poncho can’t cover your legs so I was soaked from the waist down.

Production and Marketing

Various groups of impoverished people locate themselves in places where large numbers of people with money are, i.e., at the entrance of the western-style supermarkets, at tourist attractions, etc.  Other groups frequent places where the normal traffic of every day life has to slow down or stop, i.e., at intersections or at the increasing number of traffic lights in Phnom Penh.  When the light turns red, small children or slow, tottering elderly come to the cars and peer in the tinted windows, hoping to sell limes (as in these photos) or flowers or other trinkets.

These two children approaching cars to sell limes at a stop light are the front end of a small family business.
Around the corner, mother and the smaller children put together the bags of limes that the larger children sell. They might make a couple dollars in a day.