Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

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.

Defenses against the sun: the umbrella for the stock and customers, a leopard-skin cloth for a motorcycle, and a piece of paper for the shop proprietor.

Cambodia’s close to the equator with a strong, direct sun that is very much part of daily life. Here in the early morning as businesses open up, they prepare for the day covering their stock, their cars, and their motorcycles to protect them from the sun.

A couple welders heading off for their work site early in the morning. Notice the safety equipment(?). Do you think OSHA would approve? At least they’re wearing helmets.