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Yesterday I was returning home for my weekly class in liturgical Khmer language--quite different from the common language used on the street--and my motordupe driver pointed out a large column of smoke rising above the buildings ahead of us. As we passed an intersecting street, we could see that some building was on fire. I was pleased to hear a siren responding within five minutes--I didn't know if the fire department here even made house calls!--but was puzzled by the fact that the sirens kept on for the next 45 minutes. Then it occurred to me that they were probably water trucks! There are only a few fire hydrants in the city and I don't know if any of them work. The trucks were making repeated trips to bring water to the firefighters hosing down what turned out to be a burning old traditional wooden house. Later, commenting on the continuing wail of sirens well into our language class, my teacher noted that it was very possible the firefighters were working very slowly, to encourage whoever owned the building to give them some money for motivation to put out the fire more quickly.
The English-speaking Catholic community celebrated Christ's resurrection at the Easter vigil service last night. Today there was a sunrise service (actually at 7:00 AM) sponsored by the four largest Christian groups in Phnom Penh: the Anglican Church, Assemblies of God, the International Christian Fellowship, and the English-speaking Catholic community. About 475 people filled the ballroom of the Le Royal Hotel for a service of song, scripture, prayer, and a sermon. Maryknoll provided some of the ushers, one of the readers, and I was one of the prayers. It was a nice service that flowed smoothly, and there was a great deal of interest and enthusiasm on the part of all who came. Some people don't like the idea of going to the Le Royal because of the opulent setting, but there are only two venues large enough to hold such a group, and Le Royal is the cheaper of the two.
Yesterday was moving day for John Barth and me. John is heading back to work in the United States next week and I can't afford our rent by myself, so I'm moving into the Maryknoll "Big House," our center house here in Phnom Penh. John decided to move with me for his last four or five days in Cambodia. For work like this we hire our regular motordupe drivers who rent a truck for us. It took about 3+ hours to get everything out of our second-floor wooden-house home and moved just about a kilometer over to the three-story concrete Big House. I'm hoping it will be cooler here than in the old house, but my experience so far shows no change! :( A lot of our stuff was given away to other Maryknollers or to the AIDS hospice where some of our people work or to Wat Than so the truck made two more stops after dropping off our belongings.
At least once a week I visit the deaf school run by Krousar Thmey (an NGO) here in Phnom Penh. It gives me a chance to meet the kids, understand their level of education, and talk with the teachers. Farther down the road I suspect I will be working with the school in a more formal capacity. Here I am today talking with a group of students during a break.
Friday some workers came and erected two tents across the little street next to our house in Phnom Penh, a sure sign that some celebration was to take place. A catering company set up tables and huge cooking vats in the tent at the bottom left of the picture, and Saturday afternoon people started gathering under the right-hand tent for a wedding celebration. Things were relatively muted Saturday night, but Sunday morning at 5:05 AM they started blasting away with traditional Khmer music. By 7:00 AM most of the friends and family had eaten a second large meal under the tent and two stand-up comedians, a man and a woman, starting going through their routine. It was absolutely painful! The noise level was horrendous! Notice the large trumpet speaker just eight feet from our window in the wooden wall at the right (the picture was taken from our second-floor porch), and in primitive cultures, louder is better. All amplification is always literally at full blast. Of course I didn't sleep after 5:05, so I tried doing some work in my room. I thought I'd listen to the BBC news at one point but even with my radio turned up to full volume, I couldn't hear the announcer over the noise coming from the wedding. Finally I gave up and went over to the Maryknoll house to find some relative quiet. It's parts of the culture like that that are hardest for foreigners to live with here.
Ever since I moved on to Street 308 about a year ago, the potholes have been getting worse, and particularly at the intersection with a small side street there developed a 12-foot wide hole of muck. The people who lived and cooked their meals beside it kept throwing garbage, tires, palm branches, plastic bags, and anything else handy into it, but it just kept growing and never dried up. To all our amazement Thursday, a road grader and steam roller suddenly appeared on little dirt road Street 308 and leveled it out! They didn't pave it, but at least now a motordupe can travel along the road faster than a person can walk. It was an amazing event. And now it happens just three weeks before I move to another house!
Last week when I came back to the house we rent, there was this bench set up in the yard with offerings on it: a roast chicken, two glasses of tea, some candles, some fruit, some incense, some rice. The landlord's family put it in the corner of the yard but I have no idea what it means or represents or is supposed to do. They weren't around but even if had been, I wouldn't have had the vocabulary to figure out what they were telling me.
Every day the Buddhist monks of Cambodia leave their temples (wats) at 6:00 AM and start walking the streets of the cities and villages begging for food for the day. They travel alone or in pairs and just stand silently before the front door of a home or business until the resident comes out with an offering of food or money. The monks then return to the wat and eat their meals for the day, not eating anything at all after the noon hour. Several times I have seen lines of 30-50 monks standing in the street before a whole block of businesses. My language school teacher explained that a group of business owners, seeking to gain merit for themselves and probably prosperity for their businesses, will contact a wat and agree to make a major donation. Then at an appointed time, the line of monks will appear and the business people will go to each and put something in his begging bowl.
More signs of the times in Cambodia, this time on the door of the Disability Action Council where Rachel Smith, one of our lay missioners, works.
It doesn't get very cold here but that doesn't mean that the showers aren't pretty nippy in the morning since we don't have hot water. After several colleagues bemoaned the cold water, I started tinkering with a little portable water heater that can be immersed in a container to heat water for a shower. One of the fixtures of life in this part of Asia is a toilet paper dispenser, not for the bathroom but for the dining room table, the office desk, the truck dashboard, etc. I adapted one so I could put an immersion heater through the hole, added some styrofoam to make it float, and some rocks to keep it floating vertical, and now I have a prototype. Works pretty well!
Notice anything a bit peculiar about this sign? (Hint: about when they're open.) Wat Than has four such signs up around its buildings. This skills training workshop is the original Maryknoll project here in Cambodia and is still going strong today. Originally most of the students were young landmine victims but now, thank God, those casualties are decreasing. There are still plenty of people affected by polio, though.
Yesterday my regular motordupe driver asked if I would like to go to his home for lunch, and I jumped at the opportunity. It's easy for foreigners to live totally apart from the local people and never really get to see how they live. Today he picked me up at 11:00 AM and drove me through a maze of five-foot wide "streets" to the little wooden house they call home. My driver, I found out, is one of thirteen children! He is about in the middle. His father also drives a moto and I used to ride with him regularly. They were a delightful bunch to meet and they very warmly accepted me and were glad to have me. I found out that an 11-year old son (in the green shirt above) is deaf and not going to school, so I talked to his parents about getting him into Krousar Thmey, the deaf school where I will be helping out soon.
After finishing language school, Cori Petro and Rachel Smith determined what ministries they would be working in, and then turned their attention to finding a place to live other than the Big House (the Maryknoll Center House). If there are just one or two people in the Big House, it's OK, but when there are more than that there is a lot of noise and little privacy because all the sleeping rooms open off the main room which is meeting room, living room, and TV room. Here Cori and Rachel are in their new living room where they moved today. For more pictures, 
One of the aspects of life in Phnom Penh that surprised me most was to see the garbage trucks coming around several times a week, maybe even every day. Not much works in Phnom Penh, but the garbage collection system does. I found out that maybe it works because there's money in it. A good portion of the residents of Phnom Penh make their living by picking through garbage and recycling scraps of everything. I heard that the garbage collectors are not paid by the city. THEY pay the city for the privilege of collecting the garbage and being able to get all the good stuff right at the source!
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| Often part of the difficulty of living and working in a foreign country is not quite knowing what is going on. Sometimes the actions or behavior of local people is not understood--even seems illogical, and compounding the problem is the lack of fluency in the local language which prevents just asking what is happening or what something is for. A case in point: the housekeeper where I live does all sorts of things that I don't understand. One of them is putting a rag on top of the doormats in front of the outside door and the bathroom door. What is the rag for? Are we supposed to step on it and not on the mat? Or should we avoid stepping on the rag itself? Who knows?! | |
23 August 2000--Finally!
The temperature got down to 80.5° F today! That's the lowest thermometer reading I've seen since I've been here, and it's wonderful. It actually feels cool, and at language school today I saw people wearing jackets and sweaters. It's not THAT cool, but the lowered temperature--due to continuous clouds for a couple days and a lot more rain--is delightful!
20 August 2000
I got my Cambodian driver's license about two weeks ago (by sending $20 and my Kentucky license to some government ministry with our office manager), and last Friday I ventured out on to Phnom Penh's streets for the first time. I drove our Land Cruiser in the morning rush hour to make sure I got a real test. I asked the office manager to go with me to recommend anything he saw that would help me drive better in Cambodia's largely unregulated--basically chaotic--traffic. It's a real experience to drive here. I'm compiling a Cambodia Driver's Manual that will be posted to the web site soon!
14 August 2000--Cooking in the Missions
While I was in the USA during May and June for the MMAF General Assembly, two of our lay missioners, John and Kathy Tucker, moved out of our Maryknoll "Big House" into their own apartment. Kathy was distressed to find that the new kitchen had only a gas ring for cooking, no real stove, so John Barth--the priest I live with--arranged for a trade. Kathy got the real stove, with oven, in our place, and we got their two-burner gas ring. That wasn't much of a problem since John and I don't do much cooking. But then last night I was going to warm up some soup that Kathy had made and given me last week--and found out that when she had got our stove, John B had given her all our pots and pans, too! I was going over to the Big House to borrow a pot but then we had a horrendous rainstorm so I just stayed home and heated up the soup in its glass jar, on top of a 60-watt light bulb in a desk lamp. It took about three hours to get it passably warm!
12 August 2000--New Filing Cabinet
On my last trip back to Phnom Penh from Hong Kong, I brought many files that I felt would be useful here in the years to come. They've been on the floor of my room since early July, but today I bought a new four-drawer filing cabinet to put them in. I had asked around to see if any of the NGOs or offices had an old filing cabinet they would willingly donate but I got no offers so today I put out $85 for a Chinese-made product. I bicycled over to the office furniture store at 1015 and at 1130 I had the filing cabinet in my house. I just looked at the two models on display, told the clerk which one I wanted, gave him my address, and that was it. I didn't sign anything or give any money. Then a delivery man showed up in a small truck and I helped him carry the (heavy!) cabinet up our tricky stairs and then paid him the $85. Our housekeeper came in about that time and she was talking incessantly to the driver. I found out after he left that she was haranguing him for making me help him carry the filing cabinet upstairs. She was telling him that I was too old to be doing that sort of thing. And after he left, she told me the same thing!
5 August 2000
This morning we received an e-mail that one of our members, Sr. Joyce Quinn, died today at Maryknoll, NY at 0615 Cambodian time. She had been suffering from gall bladder cancer. She had been in Cambodia since 1993 and was well known here. She worked with Sr. Regina in a village health project. Good lady!
 Joyce Quinn |
3 August 2000--Maintaining the Fun Quotient
One of the things most westerners miss here is real baked goods--cakes and pies and cookies like you would find in the US or in Europe. (One of the NGOs helping to redirect prostitutes has opened up a bakery shop here that serves wonderful cakes and pies!) We Maryknollers are no exception, and we take every opportunity to celebrate our birthdays with cakes from the Jars of Clay bakery when we gather for our Wednesday NGO meetings, liturgy, and dinner. This week we had a real birthday to celebrate but Jim was in the US. That didn't stop us, though, and we had our newest partner, Frans Lion, an eye doctor from the Netherlands, substitute for Jim and receive our well wishes and birthday song in his stead.
2 August 2000--Corruption in Cambodia Official Passports
The Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed before a parliamentary investigating body that the government has issued diplomatic passports to non-diplomats. More than 4,000 diplomatic passports have been issued while the number of eligible officials is close to 400 persons. Thailand, a much larger country, has issued only 1,000 diplomatic documents. The special passports are sought after by businessmen for unhindered travel and probably by minor officials as a status symbol.
1 August 2000
The annual floods came a few weeks early this year, but the early peak has already passed and the flood waters have receded a bit. The low-lying areas will stay flooded for the next 2-3 months, however. I learned in my Khmer classes that the people here have three words for flood, all used with the word dteuk which means "water":
- dteuk lik means the sudden minor flooding that occurs because of any especially heavy thunderstorm or some other similar natural event;
- dteuk jooun means the annual floods that come this time every year and are part of the life cycle here. People expect them and just move their pigs and dogs and chickens up into the house from underneath until the worst of the flooding passes, usually one to two weeks;
- dteuk joom noon means an unexpected, violent, and destructive flood.
Intruders at Maryknoll--24 July 2000
About 4:30 this morning, four people climbed a tree to get over the wall into the yard of the Maryknoll center house and office. Our guard was on duty and raised the alarm and the guards from nearby houses came to help. They caught one of the intruders who were apparently trying to steal a bicycle. The captured would-be thief was just a young boy who started crying--with good reason since at least once a week thieves are beaten to death in the streets by crowds because they know the police won't do anything to arrest and convict criminals. Our guard didn't turn the boy over to the police--who would have just charged money from his family to have him released--but instead took him home. Our two newest lay missioners, both young women in their early 20s, were a bit shaken up by the incident but were just grateful that our most experienced lay missioner, a man, was also there in the house with them.
Remnants of a Secret War--12 July 2000
Recently six American 500-lb bombs were detonated at the Cambodian Mine Action Center's demolition site. The bombs, dropped from a B-52 in 1975, landed unexploded near Dechor Island, halfway along Highway One to Vietnam. They were the largest group of unexploded ordnance so far recovered by CMAC. A fisherman discovered them in the Mekong River. Demolition experts speculated that these six bombs were jettisoned in the relatively isolated spot by a bomber crew returning to base, and the bombs didn't explode because they were dropped too low and their fuses didn't have time to arm themselves.
Between 1970 and 1975 the Americans dropped more than two million tons of bombs on Cambodia in a secret war carried on without congressional approval. 43,415 air attacks took place within Cambodia, and some scholars cite the devastation they caused as a reason for the rise of the Khmer Rouge and their ability to attract the support of the peasants.
My New Window--9 July 2000
Fr. John Barth and I live in an old, traditional-style Khmer house in a relatively quiet neighborhood. My room had only one small window so we asked the landlord to put a larger one in. He and a friend did all the carpentry work, mainly with two axes with homemade handles, two crowbars, and one saw. The window was installed on Wednesday and Thursday--while in the meanwhile I had all my stuff out in the main living area--and then yesterday the landlord added a cornice over the window for hanging a curtain. I took this picture this afternoon, and then later in the day the housekeeper brought in some curtains she had made.
Crime in Cambodia--8 July 2000
One of the more popular backpacker tourbooks describes Cambodia as "basically lawless," but there are hopeful signs. Statistics recently released indicated that the violent-crime rate dropped significantly last year as the result of several crackdowns aimed at increasing security within the country. Homicides were down 26% to 581; armed robberies in Phnom Penh dropped 23 percent to 1,396 for the year; and kidnappings were down 30% to 27 during the past twelve months.
Prime Minister Hun Sen's government also launched a firearms buy-back program that netted 65,000 weapons and nearly 600 grenades; and it also closed 67 gambling house in the capital in addition to some high-profile anti-drug operations.
Morning Prayers--19 February 2000
Saturday was the full moon, and at 6:00 AM the head monk of the local Buddhist wat (temple) got on the PA system and broadcast a spiritual message to the neighborhood. I hope the neighbors appreciated it; I didn't especially. First, I couldn't understand what he was saying, and, second, it was 6:00 AM! Everybody gets up early here, but that's too early to be blasting the neighborhood. Or maybe I just think it's too early and everyone else except me was already up?! :) (Actually, I do get up at 6:00 AM on school days, but don't have classes on Saturday.) John, the priest I live with, says that I can expect to hear a message like that every fourteen days.
Supply and Demand--16 March 2000
I bought a new HP810C color printer today here in Phnom Penh. There's not a lot of bargaining room on name brand imported products like that, but I did get the price down to $205. My friend in the US told me he has seen the same printer in Office Depot for $150--and on sale for $130. And when I was in Bangkok on Tuesday, I saw it there for $170.
I could easily have bought it in Bangkok because I didn't have any other stuff to carry, but we try to buy everything we can in Cambodia, even if it costs more, because what this country needs is to build up its economy so that the government has a tax base for all the infrastructure projects that are so desperately needed. Cambodia also needs to develop a middle class which is one of the major factors in moving a country out of poverty and toward a more liberal and flexible political system. When a strong middle class develops and starts complaining about useless government restrictions, bureaucracy, and inefficiency and corruption, then the government has to listen because the middle class will have economic clout.
I don't drink many soft drinks but now I've stopped drinking Coca-Cola in Cambodia for the same reason--I don't want any money going out of Cambodia to Coke headquarters in Atlanta. I just order a lemon juice and every cent supports farmers and merchants here.
Wedding Season--18 March 2000
In the past day or so, I have seen about ten wedding parties around Phnom Penh, either couples and their entourages in a white car decorated with red ribbons and bows, or the tents set up in the city streets for a wedding celebration and reception. A couple days ago, I could barely get into the courtyard of the house where I live because a neighbor's wedding tent completely covered the whole street right up to our gate. Anyone wanting to use the street was out of luck. The advent of the rainy season is the reason everyone wants to get married now. They want to have a dry day to celebrate. Like the Chinese tradition, red seems to be the color for celebration and happiness here. In the picture above, note the bunches of bananas painted gold and silver on either side of the entranceway.
Ex-Pat Cowboys--20 March 2000
The main mode of transportation here in Phnom Penh is what are called "motordupes," small motorbikes with drivers who cruise around the streets all day looking for paying passenger. The standard rate is 500 riels (about 13 cents) per kilometer, and even that is expensive for the local people.
Not content to live and travel like the local people, a lot of the young ex-pat males here adopt a cowboy lifestyle. Probably away from home for the first time, with plenty of money in a foreign country where the average policeman makes $25 a month, these cowboys tend to be very ostentatious. They don't drive motorbikes but BIG motorcycles, usually dirt bikes with fenders about four feet off the ground. And no mufflers. They love to roar around and let everyone know what they've got. And throw loud noisy parties for their ex-pat friends. It's probably not terminal and they'll eventually grow up, but sometimes it makes you want to barf.
Happenings--23 March 2000
• Yesterday one of the ferry boats, like the one we took to Siem Reap less than two weeks ago, was hijacked. I don't have the full story but about an hour into the five-hour trip, some armed men who had boarded as passengers took over the boat, forced it to stop, and then tied up and robbed all the passengers. Not a happy event for the tourist industry here!
• Tonight I had dinner with an official of the UN Human Rights Commission here in Cambodia and an activist who works for one of the major human rights legal groups here. Very interesting conversation! It was revealing to hear the stories behind the scenes here.
Death in Cambodia--27 March 2000
The young man who works as a guard at the house where I live took off excitedly for his wife's village four days ago when he got the news that she had gone into labor. Both of them are about 20 years old and this was their first child. They live in Phnom Penh, but the wife wanted to give birth in the village where her parents live. Tonight the young man came back to tell us the baby had died. There were some complications and with only a traditional midwife or less in attendance they could not save the baby. The young man told us that then they had taken the wife to Vietnam for treatment because the health care system is better there.
What is so sad is that probably the mother had no prenatal care at all although Maryknoll pays for medical care for all its employees and their families--and even school for their kids. Most of the people don't really understand contracts and benefits, though, even when they are translated and explained repeatedly, and there is also a cultural obstacle to overcome in that no one here wants to waste money going to a doctor when they feel good but only when they are dying--which is what happened in this case.
We're just hoping the wife was in good enough shape to survive the two- or three-hour trip to the nearest Vietnamese medical facilities. The priest I live with was really upset because no one had told him in advance the wife had gone to the village where there was no possibility of medical assistance, and we have a Red Cross maternity facility--supported by the Japanese--just around the corner from us. It's one of the best maternity hospitals in the country and probably would have cost $40 to have the baby there. But now because people in poverty don't know about proper care, are afraid to ask for it, and reluctant to use it, the baby is dead and the wife is in trouble. The young husband borrowed $150 before leaving again to go to his wife in Vietnam, bribe the border officials to get in, and to pay for the care she receives. Say a prayer she survives.
Ex-pats in Cambodia--31 March 2000
Many ex-patriates who live in foreign countries never really know what that country is like because they live in embassy compounds or enclaves surrounded by high-walls and only allowing westerners to live inside. I've seen foreigners talking about their experiences in various countries and I know they have only seen close-up the inside of the embassy, their foreigners club, and their compound where they live. Anything beyond that was glimpsed through the tinted glass of their air-conditioned cars as they journeyed around town, avoiding the "bad" areas. This is one of the poorest countries of Asia, even of the world, and yet a person can live almost like in the US or Europe if she or he wants to. The average police salary here is about $25 a month but today's Cambodia Daily carries an add for the Bliss salon, offering "Free Eyelash Tint with Waxing." I don't think any of my neighbors will be going.
Cambodians Like Dollars--2 April 2000
In the last twenty years or so of Cambodian history, through the ravages of the Pol Pot regime, the reconstruction period, then the 1997 coup and the flight of the NGOs and most business, the national currency, the riel, has steadily declined. The US dollar became a steady currency trusted by all, and now the dollar is used almost as much as the riel. For small purchases, like a liter of gasoline for a motordupe, riel are used, but for almost everything else the price is quoted in either US dollars or sometimes dollars and riel. Last week I bought a set of wrenches in a neighborhood market and the price was given in dollars. Today I bought bread in a western-oriented supermarket, and the prices were all in dollars. US coins are not in circulation, though, so all change is made in riel. So today the cost of my purchases was $2.20, I gave the cashier US$3.00, and she gave me 3100 riel for the 80 cents change.
Infant Mortality--4 April 2000
The government released figures this week showing that Cambodia has the highest infant mortality of all of Southeast Asia, approximately 115 children out of every 1000 dying before they are five years old. That is almost 12% of all children, and this figure is double the average of the region. The most common causes of infant death in Cambodia are malnutrition and diarrhea caused by dirty drinking water. One half of the children in the country are said to be malnourished.
Cooking on the Floor--5 April 2000
The Maryknoll center house in Phnom Penh is one of the old wooden houses built up on stilts. It has six bedrooms, a large living room, a small dining room, and a large kitchen. As seen here, though, our two cooks prefer to prepare the food seated on the floor, lots of counter space and several tables in the kitchen notwithstanding. At least everyone leaves shoes and sandals on the porch and the two cooks keep the floor clean!
Cambodian Haircut--9 April 2000
It was time for a haircut so I started looking for a barber when I went to the nearby market, a series of covered sheds with narrow paths between them. Inside were maybe 15 shops for women's hair but nothing for men. I had passed several little "shops" out on the street so I got back on my bike and started riding till I found one man with no customers and got my first Cambodian haircut. His "shop" is a chair set in the dirt next to a wall, with a rock for the customer's feet. I said "short" and that's exactly what he cut it! Cost me all of $0.72!
As soon as I got the haircut, I went home and took a shower to get rid of any lice that might be passed by the barber's tools. Many men don't like to use the street barbers because they use a piece of old razor blade for trimming (they're afraid of AIDS) but my guy opened up a new razor blade. (That's my black bike and helmet on the right.)
Early Rains--26 April 2000
It has rained almost every afternoon for the past two weeks, marking an early beginning to the wet season. It has kept temperatures from rising quite as high in the afternoons, but it has been somewhat disastrous for the rice farmers in the south. They usually plant two crops, the main crop in the wet season and a smaller crop in the dry season. Now is harvest time for the winter-time dry crop, but the early rains have caught the rice in the fields and thousands of acres have been lost because it was wet when cut and then became moldy. The loss of most of their crop has seriously hurt farmers who depend on that food and income to tide them over until the main crop can be harvested later this year when the rains stop.
Embassy Warning--28 April 2000
Yesterday the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh faxed to all the Americans on its security alert list to warn us of demonstrations expected on 30 April and 1 May. The warning advised all Americans to stay away from all demonstrations, political or otherwise, and away from military installations; and to remain indoors after dark and return home early if you should be out in the evening. We're curious what is behind this warning since 1 May, Labor Day, is an international holiday and has nothing specifically to do with the United States, and there is no strong anti-American sentiment going around Cambodia now. And one of our members who advises the Cambodia Labor Organization is part of the planning for a 2000+ demonstration on this coming Monday, Labor Day.
Readjustment Period--29 June 2000
Arriving back in Cambodia after seven weeks in the US and Hong Kong has required a bit of an adjustment period, to again get used to the way things are done here. When making my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in Hong Kong, I would open the jelly, open the peanut butter, open the bread, and then walk in the other room to get the newspaper or something. I have to keep reminding myself not to do that here because after just a minute away, the ants and geckos are in attack position on anything left open!