Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Potable?

Earlier I marveled at how our former Maryknoll office manager put together piping and a pump to send water through a house he built–and where I now live. I was pleased when he added a new pump because it created greater water pressure–and also because it eliminated a plastic garbage container he was using as a water reservoir. Now for some reason he has brought back the reservoir.

I’m not so happy with that. The water system in Phnom Penh has won an award for purity so after quite a few years here, in my last house I was drinking water from the tap instead of buying bottle water. But now that the water goes through the green plastic container above I’ve had to switch back to purified water. Notice that the container has a large circular cover that doesn’t fit tightly and allows dirt, rat droppings, whatever, to get into the water. I’ll pass now on drinking it.

“I can do that….”

This is Siphal, office manager for the Maryknoll office which closed two weeks ago. He worked for Maryknoll for more than 30 years. When I moved out of the office ten days ago, I moved into a second house Siphal built ten years ago. It’s more than I need but my stay there should be temporary.

Siphal was so helpful over the years! He knew where places were, how to get there, how much to pay, how much to bribe the officials–and how to fix things. Here he is installing a new water pump for the house. The short vertical connection had 21 valves, connectors, angles, and pieces of pipe. He sketched it on paper, eyeballed it, and then proceeded to cut and assemble everything without ever once making a measurement with a tape or ruler. Quite a valuable man for Maryknoll over the years!

Lightning

[Photo from the Khmer Times]

Asian countries seem to have a real problem with lightning. This past year 84 people were killed by lightning in Cambodia, 59 others were injured, and 107 cattle were killed. This compares to an average of about 30 people per year killed by lightning in the United States with a population of 330 million compared to Cambodia’s 16 million. Of course, though, most of Cambodia’s people spend a good part of their life outdoors.

Tents for rich people

Our neighbor at the Maryknoll office is a four-star general near the top at the Ministry of Immigration. He just finished a two-month expansion and renovation of his house, and this weekend I found out that was so his daughter could get married there.

This is a view down the street from the Maryknoll office. Normally there is only a solid blank wall at the house but for the wedding this elaborate entrance way was created to their inner yard.

The tent companies are extremely resourceful and here they created an air conditioned room in the courtyard of the house. Here the workers are finishing the last preparations.

Weddings in a neighborhood are generally quite a nuisance, especially for the foreigners, but this general was quite considerate. He did not block the entire street with a tent and he did not put the usual loudspeakers out on the street to saturate the neighborhood with the chanting of the monks. [The Maryknoll office is the leftmost of the three shophouses behind the huge generator.]
The general’s family went to quite an expense for this wedding. These are portable toilets on the street for the dozens of cooks, cleaners, guards, drivers, and police assisting with the wedding. And the toilets are full size ceramic fixtures in air-conditioned stalls!

A telltale clue

Motorcycles are the number one mode of transportation in Cambodia, with millions of them on the roads. Often, riding behind cyclists, it is difficult to know if they are men or women–unless the women are wearing dresses–because even in this normal 85º to 100º weather, Cambodians wear heavy jackets and scarves. And gloves. But the gloves are generally restricted to the women drivers who are wearing the gloves to protect their hands not from wear and tear but from the sun. As little skin as possible is to be exposed to the sun lest it be tanned or darkened.