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It’s still early for the rainy season in Cambodia but, these days, with climate change, nothing about the weather is normal.
These are some of our Education Project students, enjoying some after-school activities in our eating area. You can see this first heavy rain of the seasons was, well…heavy! (And it looks like the gutter on the left is clogged.)
I was leaving–on my bicycle–for a 5:00 PM mass when the rain started and I got rather wet.
Thursday, March 20, was the vernal equinox, the day when the day and night are equal in length, and the first day of spring. Angkor Wat was built in the 1100s, long before modern developments of science, but it was constructed so that the sun on the vernal equinox rises directly above the main tower of Angkor Wat. This is a stunning achievement with the limited knowledge of astronomy and cosmology and architecture available at that time, and a dramatic expression of the curiosity and creativity and intelligence of the human species. This year more than 85,000 visitors were at Angkor Wat to observe this phenomenon.
Most of Phnom Penh’s population has been transplanted from the rural provinces to the capital city. The saying goes: “You can take the person out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the person.” There are many illustrations of that adage around Phnom Penh where the now city dwellers try to recreate the fields, the plants, the flowers the way it was “back then.”
The past couple days I noticed there was more haze in the sky and distant buildings were harder to see but I didn’t notice any difference in breathing. But now the paper says two days ago Phnom Penh (arrow) was the second most air-polluted city in the world, behind only Dhaka, Bangladesh. Today the visibility is much greater and the air quality number is 84, much lower than the previous 190+. Air pollution is not something Phnom Penh is noted for.
This is a view from my new room in Phnom Penh, up on the 12th floor. It’s quite a switch from where I lived before! The golden building is the Golden 42, one of the first tall buildings in Cambodia–and still unfinished. It was started about 12 years ago and has gone through three different owners, none of whom could come up with the money to finish it. It now stands on one of the most commercially valuable corners in Cambodia, unfinished, empty, maybe even abandoned.
What would we do without plastic bags? (Probably we’d have a much cleaner environment!)
You can buy almost anything on the street in Phnom Penh. The rainy season has started now and this entrepreneur has switched his stock to rain wear to make sure everyone can stay dry in the daily rains.
The rainy season starts in late May or early June. It seems to be starting a little later each year now. But it’s in full force already this year.
This is Street 53BT where I live in Phnom Penh. We occasionally get some water pooled up but today we had a prolonged heavy downpour and this water will be with us for a day or so. It was deep enough that my pedals were going in the water as I rode my bicycle through the flood.
Today the task was to pull together all the elements and ideas raised during the first two days to put develop a strategy for CACD’s addressing climate change.
Each of the four small groups sought to organize a plan according to what they have done and what they want to do.
The coffee breaks and lunch were held outside today.
Another small group at work.