Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

In the old days a case full of soft drinks in bottles was heavy.  Then we got a case of soft drinks in aluminum cans.  In Cambodia, coconuts don’t come in cases–rather in wagon loads–but you can believe they are heavy.  A big coconut like some of these could easily weight five or six pounds.  The driver cruises around until someone hails him, and then he uses a chopper (meat cleaver to Americans) to cut off enough of the top to insert a straw.

There’s a whole lot of vegetables leaving the Doeum Kor market early every morning.

Sometimes a guy just needs to sit and think…

Things are different in the Kingdom of Wonder.  This used car lot doesn’t look much like used car lots in the U.S.   And probably in the U.S. the whole family wouldn’t come to buy what is most likely their first four-wheel vehicle.  This family may have come on the motorcycle in the foreground.  Now they’re negotiating a price for an SUV.

The foreign population of Phnom Penh is constantly turning over.  We see that in our parish community where we need to recruit new ministers every four or five months because so many are rotated out or reassigned.  And it’s the same with the buildings here.  Places that I pass often have been family homes, a restaurant, a crocodile farm, a bar and brothel in quick succession.  One group moves out and the other moves in with the least bit of disruption.

An illustration is the house in these pictures.  Just a year and a half ago, it was a residence for high-ranking US Embassy personnel.  I was often there for meetings, dinners, birthdays, etc., with the family with four children who lived there.  Yesterday it opened as some sort of high-end coffee shop!

She must have as much stuff in front of her as behind her, judging from the angle of her legs!  Not fun!

“I’m not PLAYING in the street, I’m DRAWING!!!”

“I’m just glad I’m only delivering this stuff and don’t have to cook it!”