Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Hey, Why Can’t We??!!

Today in a ceremony turning over new China-donated fire trucks to local fire stations, the Interior Minister asked the firemen (and women?) not to demand payments and bribes when they arrive at the scene of a fire.  How novel!

But his plea could be counter-productive.  Who the heck wants to be a fireman if you can’t rip off people and make money for yourself!  Not to worry, though.  Probably not much will change in the behavior of the fire department personnel (a division of the police in Cambodia) because my guess is a good percentage of the money they extort from fire victims gets passed up the line to superiors.

What’s in YOUR Front Yard?

This is a picture of the front yard of the Maryknoll office in Phnom Penh.  Our guards–who are basically bored silly all day and night–grow different things throughout the year.  At present we have growing there a pineapple (yellow circle) and orchids (pink circle)—and the guard’s laundry on the rack on the right.  How many of you have orchids and pineapples growing in your yards?

Where do the names come from?

In many cities around the world, major streets and boulevards have been given the names of famous people who lived one or two hundred years ago–or even longer.  Many times the person for whom the street is named has long since been forgotten.

The pattern is different in Phnom Penh where the Khmer Rouge tried to establish their own Year Zero in the 1970s.  Here is a contemporary street sign that reflects more modern history:

Charles De Gaulle Blvd reflects the French colonial era which ended in 1954.

Tchecoslovaquie is the French form of Czechoslovakia, one of the Eastern bloc countries that supported Cambodia when the West would not.

Oknha is the title given to a person who donates a lot of money to the ruling party and so is honored with a street named for himself.

Monireth is the name of the queen mother and recognizes the royal family.

And then there’s Colonel Sanders!

Plans Gone Awry

I had planned to do a more extensive spread of pictures here today but everything today–giving a talk for Mother Teresa’s sisters and a meeting with new St. Vincent de Paul Society members—took longer than expected and I just ran out of time.  Next Sunday, for sure.

I did run across this young man hauling empty (I’m guessing) foam coolers through the streets this morning.  With a little ingenuity and a lot of tape, you can secure some big loads to motorcycles.

High Water Time

You may have read about the dam collapsing in Laos the week before last and sending a whole lot of water south in the Mekong.  That water has now arrived in Phnom Penh and combined with the normal rains of this season has raised the water level on our riverfront quite high.  Normally these tourist boats, moored in the same place, would be out of sight with the river level about 15-20 feet lower.

The Killing Fields

Many people have seen the movie The Killing Field and many have visited the killing field near Phnom Penh, the site most people know of.  There are actually about 300 killing fields, though, spread throughout the country.  There is such a large number of these fields because the number of Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge was great.  It is generally thought that the Pol Pot regime was responsible for the deaths of perhaps 1.5 to 2 million people.  The killing field that most tourists visit is the orange dot along the river, immediately south of Phnom Penh (next to the row of three yellow prison dots).