Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
You may go your whole life in the US and never see something like this. Palm trees you may encounter in parts of the southern US, but the big wire thing? It’s a coconut catcher. They aren’t too common even here in Cambodia, but in some places with a lot people walking around and with a lot of palm trees with a lot of coconuts, they can be literally life-saving devices. Coconuts are heavy–maybe 3 to 5 lbs–with thick, heavy husks. One falling on a person’s head from 50 feet can be fatal.
This big grey building housed a karaoke center pre-Covid-19. Then when the government closed all such gathering places, they reopened as restaurants–at least officially. Stories keep appearing in the papers of the music still going on inside. This place placed the name “LA Restaurant” over the entranceway and hung up a sign of various dishes, and, voila, a restaurant! During the morning marketing time, vendors fill the street in front of the hall.
Two children, one playing alone on the riverfront in Phnom Penh, the other cradled by his mother. May they both survive and thrive….
From the looks of the sign and the stand, you can get both your motorcycle and your clothes cleaned and get some coffee to drink at the same time.
The graph above, from VOD, indicates that all is not well with the Cambodian government’s efforts to slow down the spread of Covid-19 in the kingdom.
On the other hand, the government has made some good moves. Within ASEAN, Cambodia has vaccinated more people than any other country except Singapore. And Cambodia has from the start included us foreigners living here in their vaccination plans. In this picture a member of our English Catholic Community gets his second injection.
Life under Covid-19 is certainly unpredictable but yet there are also elements in society and the culture that are the same.
(Left photo) Even as the infections are still quite bad in Cambodia, the government is anticipating that vaccinating everyone will improve the situation (Cambodia has the second highest number of vaccinations given in ASEAN, after Singapore), and so they have prepared a video to welcome back the foreign tourists.
(Right) Probably because there has been so much disruption, loss of income and mobility and opportunity, the populace in some areas is very serious about making things better quickly. One man who tested positive escaped from the treatment center, and when locals found him at his home, the police had to intervene to keep him from being beaten to death.
(Left photo) Even as the numbers of infections in the last three months (25,000) increased more than 6,500% over the infections in the entire first year (375) of the pandemic, some foreigners feel the safety regulations and requirements shouldn’t interfere with their enjoyment and still keep partying.
(Right) Another old custom persisting in the culture is adulterating rice wine with methanol. In the latest incident 12 people died after drinking the rice wine at a funeral.
[Photos and headlines from the Khmer Times.]
