Category: Environment

Caritas Climate Workshop 2

Today was Day 2 of the climate change strategy workshop. We had video presentations from speakers in Australia and India, and then the small groups went to work again.

This is the small group on climate and health giving a report on their group discussions and ideas.

Climate Change Workshop 1

CACD, the Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development, is holding a three-day workshop on its response to climate change here in Cambodia. Today was the first day.

About 40 representatives from Catholic NGOs and agencies are participating in the workshop at the Caritas Cambodia national office.

The major presented is a local professor who is excellent. He speaks well, knows his material, and presents it in a really engaging way.

At the end of the day the group divided into four topic discussion groups. This one focused on engaging young people in climate change learning and activity.

First rain

This is Street 53BT in Boeung Tum Pun where I live and this is the flood I stepped out of my house into when we got the first rain of the season a few days ago. April and May are the two hottest months in Cambodia and they were REALLY hot this year. This overnight rain helped to bring the temperature under 100ºF.

Earth Day

Some notes about our Earth (from the Morning Brew website):

  • Earth happens to be located in a remote corner of the Milky Way, a location that presents fewer threats, like a huge star devouring us with its gravity. The star we do have nearby, the sun, is stable and the perfect distance away to sustain liquid water (important!).
  • When the sun does send deadly flares our way, they’re not calamitous because the Earth’s core produces a magnetic field that deflects radiation.

Caritas Cambodia Retreat 2024 / Day 4a

Today was a get-to-know-your-country day for the Caritas Cambodia staff. Most of the day was spent visiting several interesting sites around Sihanoukville.

It wasn’t on the schedule but we had a mass after breakfast before getting on the road.
The first stop was a mangrove restoration area where the staff planted mangrove seedlings to restore those trees that are so important in maintaining healthy coastal areas.

The seedlings could be planted anywhere in the water but were to be two meters apart from other seedlings.

After the planting we had a rice box lunch at this house isolated in a really remote area.
There is no electricity in this isolated marshlands area so the solar panels on the roof supply some lighting and phone charging.

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.

Human Rights for the Deaf 4

The training for judges and prosecutors working with people with disabilities was organized by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights (or UN Human Rights). It was held at the Angkor Paradise Hotel which seemed to have five or six UN and NGO meetings going on while still accommodating hordes of tourists come to see Angkor Wat.

The Angkor Paradise Hotel is a beautiful facility but much of its beauty comes from its (over) use of luxury woods native to Cambodia, one of its treasures.

The hotel lobby exhibited the characteristic Cambodia display of wooden furniture, figures, and objects.
The shops in the lobby were accented by massive wooden stools. Imagine the huge luxury trees sacrificed to provide these five incredibly heavy wooden decorations in the corridor.

Another section of the lobby.
Wooden chairs and a carving worth thousands of dollars decorate one of the passageways. These chairs are really unusual because they are padded! I have never seen that in 23 years here. For me one of the curses of Cambodia is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with these huge wooden chairs, designed for a Cambodian sense of beauty and not for comfort.
The Angkor Paradise Hotel has a beautiful pool.
And of course the pool furniture is more of the heavy wooden style.