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We had a heavy rainstorm this afternoon, right before I was to bicycle home. 20 minutes after it started, it was already over my shoes so I left the bike at the deaf office and took a tuk-tuk home. These two girls got a bit damp on their way home on the streets of the Boeung Tum Pun neighborhood.
This is the type of tuk-tuk I was in. My shoes were in water when I was sitting IN the tuk-tuk. I have never seen Boeung Tum Pun flood so deep so fast before.
Going home from school can be different here….
This tuk-tuk driver, a man, is wearing a hat that would be considered women’s fashion in the United States. He might recognize it as a woman’s hat and just doesn’t care, but more likely he doesn’t identify it as for a woman and just puts it on because it’s available and he wants a hat. It is not uncommon for men to be seen in Cambodia wearing styles or garments that would be considered feminine in the US, maybe in the western world. Probably they are not aware of how those garments are worn in the west and also, too, they don’t care. A lot of life here is focused on survival, and questions about aesthetics and propriety just don’t arise.
This is what a common family home looks like in Phnom Penh. The building has four apartments, each one room wide. The ground floors have roll-up or sliding gates so that cars can be brought into the living room at night. Especially notable is the fourth floor–an open space with a roof. It prevents the heat of the sun from reaching the lower floors and makes a big difference in the interior temperatures.
How many rolls of tape do you think it took to secure a van load of vegetables for the trip to Phnom Penh? I would think there would be a cheaper, more efficient way keep the load together but maybe it’s the best, most reliable way they have found and the price of tape is just the cost of doing business.