Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
The recent flooding–still continuing–has caused a lot of inconvenience to people forced to move, and disruption to people going to work and school. It has also caused a lot of physical damage to the streets. The Cambodians have never actually caught on how to properly pave a road–the usual 1/8th inch of asphalt over gravel doesn’t work so well–and the repeated submersion in water has taken its toll, with many streets now well potholed.
When it rains in Phnom Penh, people on motorcycles deal with it in various ways. Click here to see some of the uses–or not–of rain gear.
With four motorcycles of people lined up waiting to be served, whatever the woman under the red umbrella is selling at breakfast time must be really good because the people seem to be coming back.
This block near the Maryknoll office illustrates the shifting nature of the city. On the corner is an old traditional wooden house, modified with more modern side paneling and a small business on the ground floor. Then there are two four-story houses, the new normal for most of the Phnom Penh residents, and then in the background is the Era Hotel, closed since March, but a visible expression of the high-rise architecture spreading through the city.
On take-your-child-to-work day, parents around the world let their children see where they work and how they earn a living. In a country where there is no daycare and mother is probably working in a garment factory, this little boy spends every day with his father who repairs flat tires on the side of the road.
This is the rainy season in Cambodia, there is a tropical storm affecting a whole area of Southeast Asia, and we had a really heavy storm for about an hour this afternoon. I like rain and needed to go to the grocery so I ventured out when the storm was at its heaviest.
In most countries around the world almost everyone has been affected by the closure of businesses and a reduction in commerce due to the pandemic. Cambodia has been spared much of that, and even the restaurants that closed in March are now back open and many operating as if there never was a virus. Particularly hard hit were the street vendors who depended on the thousands of school kids who eat meals and snack on the way to and from school. Basically all the schools are now reopened in Phnom Penh—on a limited basis–and the vendors are really happy to see this boy and girl and their classmates to help them recoup some of their lost income over the past seven or eight months.
Transportation between cities in Cambodia is not easy. There are no usable trains. The highways are a mess. Bus service is slow and uncomfortable and doesn’t go everywhere. If you really need to get some place, you might take a “taxi,” a euphemism for an ordinary Toyota Camry into which will be crammed seven to nine people. Somehow certain intersections have been designated as pick-up points for different cities. As you approach one of these intersections, the touts above rush you, two or three grab your luggage, and yell “Where you go?” When they get enough for a taxi–that could take five minutes or forty-five minutes–the driver takes off and drives like an idiot to your destination city. The taxi drivers are so bad and so dangerous that the Deaf Development Programme does not allow our staff to use them unless there is no other alternative.