Kompong Cham Trip

Four of the seven MMAF members in Cambodia took a trip to the province of Kampong Cham in July, 2000. The trip was part of the orientation of the new Maryknollers to Cambodia and an opportunity to see how the church operates in the rural provinces.

This first page shows some of the common workers we saw on the way to a small village along the Mekong River

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A family-owned bicycle shop
A small bicycle shop run by a family. Bicycles are a major means of transportation in Cambodia, especially in the rural areas. Drying food on the roadside
A man drying some fruit along the roadside--where it can catch maximum dirt!

Collecting waste paper
A father and son collect scrap paper at a provincial town market. A dry-goods seller in the market
Many women and their children spend the whole day in their stalls selling dry goods in the provincial markets.

Fishing drying beside the road
Fish drying in the afternoon sun. The rack used for drying is actually a Khmer bed. Loading a motorcycle truck
Most goods in Cambodia are delivered by trailers pulled by small motorcycles. Goods are piled unbelievably high!

A woman selling cooked rice
Near the docks on the Mekong River, a woman sells bags of cooked rice to people boarding the boats We left Phnom Penh at 11:00 AM and got to the provinicial capital of Kampong Cham about three hours later, traveling on relatively good road, unlike the route to Battambang. In Kampong Cham we got lost trying to find the Catholic church but eventually got hooked up with Fr. Juan de Jesus, a Colombian mission priest who took us by boat to Kondor, the SMALL village where he works. Kampong Cham is a largely Muslim province ("Cham" means Muslim) but relations between Islam and Buddhism and Christianity is relatively trouble-free although Saudi Arabia is now financing hardline advocates to Cambodia to encourage a stricter form of Islamic observance here.

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A small bicycle shop run by a family. Bicycles are a major means of transportation in Cambodia, especially in the rural areas.	A man drying some fruit along the roadside--where it can catch maximum dirt!
A father and son collect scrap paper at a provincial town market.	Many women and their children spend the whole day in their stalls selling dry goods in the provincial markets.
Fish drying in the afternoon sun. The rack used for drying is actually a Khmer bed.	Most goods in Cambodia are delivered by trailers pulled by small motorcycles. Goods are piled unbelievably high!
Near the docks on the Mekong River, a woman sells bags of cooked rice to people boarding the boats	We left Phnom Penh at 11:00 AM and got to the provinicial capital of Kampong Cham about three hours later, traveling on relatively good road, unlike the route to Battambang. In Kampong Cham we got lost trying to find the Catholic church but eventually got hooked up with Fr. Juan de Jesus, a Colombian mission priest who took us by boat to Kondor, the SMALL village where he works. Kampong Cham is a largely Muslim province ("Cham" means Muslim) but relations between Islam and Buddhism and Christianity is relatively trouble-free although Saudi Arabia is now financing hardline advocates to Cambodia to encourage a stricter form of Islamic observance here.