Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Our power has been going on and off daily for quite a few weeks because the dry season has lowered the water levels in the reservoirs which generate 60% of Cambodia’s power. This week we have had three one-hour downpours, though, so maybe the rainy season is just about here. The government newspaper says it will begin the third week of May. This is what the street looked like yesterday when I came out of a hamburger joint after a lunch meeting.
Mangoes are definitely in season now but they are just the predominant fruit available now in the markets. There are lots of others. One is this fruit for which I have now forgotten the name! It is a big fruit with a large hull, almost like a coconut, but there is just a small amount of soft creamy colored fruit inside (in the upper plastic bags in the picture). I’ll have to ask the name….
It’s May in Cambodia and hotter than he** and we’re getting near to the rainy season with a few sporadic rains to indicate what’s on the way. Also in May the mangoes become ripe and this man has a load with some really big ones.
Asian people generally don’t bake. Most of their land is in rice and they don’t have wheat. As times and tastes change, though, many bakeries like this one are springing up in Phnom Penh. I come from a family where Mom baked a pie or cake or cookies almost every day but that’s not what you find here. Go into one of these bakeries looking for doughnuts or rolls or kuchen (or even an eclair, as the name of this place suggests) and you will be disappointed. These places are usually an initiative of a stay-at-home-mother who wants to start a small business like everyone else. She bakes a few cakes, seen in the display case, and creates other cakes to order, but it’s not a business driven by volume—and the cakes are certainly not like mother used to make!
Here are three examples of people moving people or stuff on a Sunday morning as I was motorduping across town to the 10:00 AM mass.
After years of organizing and fund-raising, Janne Ritskes was finally able to see the opening of her Nokor Tep’s Women Hospital that she built. Click here for photos of the opening ceremony.
It’s not a particularly heavy or dangerous load–and it’s nice to sit on, but I’ll bet the other drivers give him a wide berth when they see him coming.
