Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

The Cambodian Cyclist

This is a photograph of the quintessential Cambodian bicycle rider–riding serenely, even gracefully along a city street, sit stiffly erect, pedaling oh so slowly. I can’t do it. I can’t ride that slowly, nor can I ride in the near middle of the lane. I have to stay over near the curb to let faster traffic pass me on the left.

It’s wood…and more

This is a doctor’s waiting room. Note the heavy wooden furniture! This furniture is the goal of every business operation. Acquiring the 100-pound chairs on the left means you have arrived. You are the real thing, whatever your business is, be it a dentist office, a car wash, a bank, a metal fabrication shop, whatever. The Cambodian culture is obsessed with luxury woods that bestow respect and esteem upon their owners.

Water Meter

This is a corner of the front yard of the present Maryknoll office we are renting. It’s an unpaved corner where our guards grow aloe vera, bananas, pineapples, jack fruit, or whatever else strikes their fancy. The circle draws your attention to the water meter for our house, just sticking up out of the ground, a little bit near the fence, but not really trying to be out of the way.

There are no Cambodian wiring and plumbing codes–at least none that are enforced–so everything like installing water to a house is done by your brother-in-law and he puts the meter wherever he feels like it. Or wherever the plastic pipe that he brought extends to.

This is a close-up of the water meter. It’s set and half buried in a mound of concrete, out in the open where anyone can fool with it. Note that, oddly, there is a cut-off valve on either side of the meter!

I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas….

The English community had a 6:30 PM Christmas Eve mass, and when we came out at 7:30 PM, it started pouring rain. The Khmer community were supposed to have a 10:30 PM mass on this stage tonight. Will they make it? It’s still raining at 9:00 PM!
This is some of the traffic caught in the rain at 7:45 PM. Most of the moto drivers on the street have cheap plastic ponchos you can buy for 37¢. But notice all the moto drivers up under the gas station shelter. That’s the custom here…if you’re out and it starts raining, you park under the shelter to wait it out, dozens of such riders effectively shutting down the station because no one can get near the pumps. It’s OK, though…the gas stations don’t complain!