Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Driving while Distracted?

Driving any vehicle while using a phone is a dangerous no-no although there is little awareness of that in Cambodia where everyone uses phones while driving and no one has a sense that there’s anything wrong with it. Wearing a motorcycle helmet adds another layer of risk to the whole equation.

The right direction…

For 30+ years Maryknoll lay missioners and brothers and sisters and priests have gone to Bangkok for medical treatment that just wasn’t available here in the kingdom. Things are changing now as is evidenced by this sign informing people that now another procedure, blood dialysis, is available at the Russian Hospital.

Always room for one more…

The guiding principle in transporting people and things in Cambodia is that if it’s not dragging on the ground, you’re good to go.

This van is headed out of town to the provinces. Apparently a couple riders decided it was worth a couple bucks to “ship” their motorcycles back to the province rather than ride them in horrendous traffic on horrendous roads for many hours.
This young man’s view of the world is rather limited. Actually, he’s big enough that normally he would be sitting in front of his father but today he was displaced by the large bag of something occupying his place.

It’s good for you…

Cambodians have this unshakeable belief that whatever ails you, you need an IV. You can go into a pediatrics ward and every child will be hooked up to an IV. For many Cambodians, if they don’t get an IV when they’re sick, they might as well get nothing. Here two parents ride home on their moto, with their son in between them, and he has an IV in his arm.

Watch your step!

New sewers are being installed in parts of Phnom Penh and in some respects they are literal life-savers. Open pits and holes along the roads like this are quite common, and when the road is flooded with water, you proceed at great peril. Things are better now but I remember walking along flooded roads with a staff, feeling for holes, pits, uncovered sewers, etc.

Sun Dried

When I was a kid I remember seeing “sun dried” on boxes of raisins. Here in Cambodian culture, sun dried takes on a whole different meaning where there are few processed foods. People buy fish, fillet them, and leave them out on the street to dry–and catch dust and street grime.

Safety is #1–but late arriving

This is something you would never have seen just a few short years ago–a shop selling safety equipment. The foreign donors for projects make the local people paint on the barriers around their projects “Safety is #1,” but people don’t believe that and take almost no precautions that would be considered very normal in most countries. The last statistic I saw reported that only 20% of the motorcycle drivers and passengers wear helmets even though they are required for both.

Money Laundering Needed

Cambodia has lots of good things about it. It also has more than its share of quirks, superstitions, anomalies, corruption, and downright ignorance. An example of the last is this $20 bill from the U.S. I tried to pay for some groceries in the big foreigner supermarket using this bill and they wouldn’t accept it because of the red corner. Any bill with a dirt spot or stain, a slight tear, a strange marking–No, we can’t accept that. The fact that the U.S. Government will accept it carries no weight. The majority of people just feel that somehow a marking invalidates a bill although their own currency is often in tatters with all sorts of marking, tears, tape, etc. In the defense of some of the non-accepting people, they know it is valid but they also know that THEY can’t pass it off to other customers so they will be stuck with it.