Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

I’m not sure what I’m seeing here. This man has set up a little stand on the sidewalk beside the wall of a wat and it looks like he’s selling used sport shoes. But what are the black oblong things stacked up? Are they new soles that he can glue or stitch to a pair of shoes? They look awfully long, but then maybe he cuts them down to the shoe size. I’ll have to go by there again and see if he is still there and what he has on his stand.

One of my least favorite activities in Cambodia is going to a bank. Cambodian people don’t see anything wrong with their bank procedures because that is all they know, but to people who have gone to banks in other countries, it’s enough to make you scream. I was in a bank for about fifteen minutes this afternoon, to make a simple cash deposit. There were eight bank employees behind the counter (some moved as I took the picture), waiting on one person at a time. Notice the woman sitting at the left. These are the only banks I’ve been in where you go to the counter and present your cash, deposit slip, and bankbook–and then have to go sit down. The cashier signs several papers, presents them to her manager who signs them, and then they return to the cashier who signs and stamps them again. But it doesn’t all happen in a quick sequence. There are big gaps as the papers are handed back and forth. Thus they encourage you to sit. Grrrr…..

A wealthy neighbor of the Deaf Development Programme office just had some metal gates and barriers made. The workmen cut and welded all the metal out in the street. And then they spray painted it all black and green, leaning it up against a neighbor’s wall or laying it flat in the street. You can see the mess it left. Only it’s not a mess for the Cambodians. They would never think the paint all over everything is a problem.

You want a challenge? Imagine doing something with this pile of cable with many different sections spliced together. I wonder what it came from? Some construction site where it tied sections together?

Cambodia is a very dark place. Most of the country now has acquired some form of electricity as of the last three to five years. According to the World Bank in 2018, 72% of households are connected to the grid; 26% are off the grid, using home solar systems or batteries.

The electricity supply is unreliable. Only 13% of the people have electricity 23 hours a day. 70% face frequent unpredictable power outages. 33% experience damage to their appliances because of voltage fluctuations.

On top of that, electricity is expensive here. Also most buildings were put up before electricity was available and it had to be added later. Thus the lighting in most houses especially is quite minimal.

In the picture above, at a sacristy in a girls school, there is one eighteen-inch fluorescent light above the window and that would be typical lighting for many buildings, even with much bigger rooms.