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When I tried to fire up my main computer a few minutes ago, it refused to cooperate. I took it apart and tried cleaning all the contacts but the drive may be shot so I’m using my little netbook that I use for trips to write this.
Tomorrow morning I head for Siem Reap for a meeting of all of our staff. I’ll be back in Phnom Penh on Friday afternoon, but should be posting from the retreat center where we are staying. And I hope my computer will be working when I get back!
In the eighteen years I have been in Cambodia, I have seen this man numerous times over the years. He is always dressed the same: shorts, no shirt, a hat, and flipflops. He carries a large bag and picks up recyclable trash like cardboard and plastic bottles. He can’t make much given the meager scale of his operations but he seems to get by.
Many jurisdictions require hands-free arrangements if a driver wants to use a phone while behind the wheel. That’s probably better than holding a phone and talking while driving although the distraction factor is still here. In Cambodia not that many people have cars but they do have lots of motorcycles and they do want to talk while driving those. This is one method, sticking the phone under the helmet next to your ear.
Headlines and news reports from United States media frequently make reference to the campaign to raise the minimum wage in the U.S. to $15 an hour. The minimum wage is also a matter for discussion in Cambodia but here the goal of organized labor is a minimum wage of $182 PER MONTH. The current wage norm here is $170 per month, raised before last July’s elections in order to get the garment industry workers to support the ruling party.
Tens of thousands of garment factory workers–usually young women–ride to work each day jammed, standing up, in the back of open trucks. Many of them are killed in the frequent accidents when trucks overturn and collide from speeding and throw bodies everywhere. The government’s response? “Training” drivers to obey the law and “urging” them to get driver’s licenses. That’s a neat idea.
It’s not unusual to see women in Cambodia carrying something on their heads, but usually it’s a tray of peanuts or some snack for sale. This woman looks like she’s moving house.
They may seem redundant in age in which almost everyone has a smartphone with a camera, but Phnom Penh has street photographers around some tourist attractions who can give a printed picture fast enough for tourists who need to get back on the tour bus. Click here to see some of the operators.
This is the scene every Sunday morning when I cross town to go to St. Joseph Church for the 10:00 AM mass. The police wait at certain intersections and grab people for mostly imagined offenses. The policeman at the SUV is waiting for his payoff and the woman and her child are pulling over so she can come up with some money.
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.