Tasty “snakes”

Today some of the DDP staff got the idea to fry up some “snakes,” as Cambodians tend to pronounce “snacks.” Sliced gourd, potato slices, some cabbage, and sliced onions were battered and then fried in oil in the wok. Served with a pepper and lemon juice sauce, they were delicious!

Daddy’s working

On take-your-child-to-work day, parents around the world let their children see where they work and how they earn a living. In a country where there is no daycare and mother is probably working in a garment factory, this little boy spends every day with his father who repairs flat tires on the side of the road.

Heavy weather

This is the rainy season in Cambodia, there is a tropical storm affecting a whole area of Southeast Asia, and we had a really heavy storm for about an hour this afternoon. I like rain and needed to go to the grocery so I ventured out when the storm was at its heaviest.

This is when I was coming home from the grocery and the actual rain has stopped falling. This is a really shallow area. When I was bicycling in the worst-affected areas, my foot and the pedal where six inches below the surface
The garbage collectors are on strike now and there are piles like this all over the city. Luckily this pile is in shallow water. In the deeper areas, the plastic bags of trash have gone sailing away in the rushing waters in the streets.
This section of street is about ten feet lower than the main road which was built up precisely to be a dike against flooding of large areas of the city. But now all that water collected on the elevated road flows down to streets like this and is under such pressure that it flows out of the sewers at this lower level.

They’re Back!

In most countries around the world almost everyone has been affected by the closure of businesses and a reduction in commerce due to the pandemic. Cambodia has been spared much of that, and even the restaurants that closed in March are now back open and many operating as if there never was a virus. Particularly hard hit were the street vendors who depended on the thousands of school kids who eat meals and snack on the way to and from school. Basically all the schools are now reopened in Phnom Penh—on a limited basis–and the vendors are really happy to see this boy and girl and their classmates to help them recoup some of their lost income over the past seven or eight months.

“Where you go?”

Transportation between cities in Cambodia is not easy. There are no usable trains. The highways are a mess. Bus service is slow and uncomfortable and doesn’t go everywhere. If you really need to get some place, you might take a “taxi,” a euphemism for an ordinary Toyota Camry into which will be crammed seven to nine people. Somehow certain intersections have been designated as pick-up points for different cities. As you approach one of these intersections, the touts above rush you, two or three grab your luggage, and yell “Where you go?” When they get enough for a taxi–that could take five minutes or forty-five minutes–the driver takes off and drives like an idiot to your destination city. The taxi drivers are so bad and so dangerous that the Deaf Development Programme does not allow our staff to use them unless there is no other alternative.

You hear a really big “THUMP”!

We restarted our education project yesterday at the Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme and now that we know about how many students will be returning, we need to make some modifications to classrooms. We also need to work on the roof of this corridor. The red circle on the translucent panel marks the biggest hole—among several–caused by coconuts falling from the trees. The coconuts weight five to ten pounds and fall from 20 to 30 feet and are capable of doing a lot of damage to buildings and people.

A busy corner

Another busy, typical street in Phnom Penh. Everything is available in the different neighborhoods and corners like these put it all on display: Chinese steamed rolls, deep-fried Cambodian doughnuts, pans of fruit, clothes. It’s all right at hand.