Khmer New Year–Day 2

On the way to a hospital to get our first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine, the Maryknoll group passed Wat Phnom, the spiritual center of Cambodia. It was decorated for the new year but no one was there because yesterday afternoon the government imposed a lockdown on Phnom Penh with just five or six hours notice.
The government rarely does things simply and clearly. Yesterday they announced that the lockdown would start at midnight. Today the papers said it started at 12:00 April 15th. Was that yesterday midnight or tonight midnight? The police apparently thought it was yesterday midnight because they had streets blocked off when we finished getting the vaccine.

Easter…still

Maryknoll Fr. Joe Veneroso is a poet who takes the themes of our belief and theology and puts them into a form that sings their meaning to us. We are still in the Easter Season–and will be for several more weeks. Let us not forget what Easter means for us. Here is Fr. Veneroso’s Easter message:


“We stand at the foot of the cross and
Cannot help but wonder why

Undergo such sacrifice and
Unspeakable suffering and humiliation.

As if reading our unspoken thoughts, he says,
‘Do you still not see or understand?
Nothing you can do, no sin you can commit
Will ever make me stop loving you.’

And with that he bows his head and dies.
Before daybreak we rise to walk
Alongside the mourning, myrrh-bearing women.

The stone removed, our sadness devolves into despair.
An empty tomb taunts us with renewed doubts.
Grave robbers? The owner? The wrong tomb? Or. . .
‘Why seek the living among the dead?’
He says our name.
He whom we thought dead now lives again
We rush back with Magdalene
To spread the Good News and henceforth

To live for him who died and rose for us. Amen. Alleluia.”

Now, the real thing….

Usually we find out how many COVID-19 infections were detected in Cambodia in one day in the newspaper the following morning, but today so many people tested positive the government announced at 2:30 PM that they had 576 infections already for today. To put that into perspective, we had about 350 infections for ALL OF 2020. That is a minuscule number compared to other countries but it’s a very significant shift for Cambodia where we don’t have a strong healthcare system. I suspect we’re in for strict measures to try to cope with the sudden increase.

New “old” staff

Today Nob Samnang (L) came to her first day of work at DDP as administrator. On the front porch to welcome her were (L to R): Russ Brine, Sau Soknym, and Thuch Sophy.
Later Russ (L) and Soknym began an orientation for Samnang. She actually worked for DDP before but left to get married and move to Battambang. Now back in Phnom Penh, she heard that the administrator position was open and we were pleased to be able to hire someone with both experience and sign language.

Encroachment

I’m standing in a little street near our house where the street dead ends in a market. It’s a two-lane street but notice how a house has been built out into the street, completely taking over one lane. The house with the brick wall and the orange cooler in front is not supposed to be there but the builder of the house paid someone off or started with a little food cart there and then took off the wheels and put it on blocks and then put an awning over it and then closed in the sides and then…. until finally it is a full-blown house. Notice that once the first house was established, neighbors appeared beside them so that there are now three or four family structures there side-by-side. The Kingdom of Wonder….

Stop Covid-19 System

This shop has a string up to keep customers from entering and it also displays a “Stop Covid-19” QR system poster for recording those coming to the shop.
A QR code poster for an NGO. A customer uses an app on her phone to scan the QR code, and her presence at this site at such and such a time is recorded in a government database.

More than 155,000 shops and institutions have signed up to participate in the “Stop Covid-19” program which seeks to record who visits a site in order to assist contact tracing if necessary should a Covid-19-infected person visit that location. When introducing the scheme, the government downplayed any concerns about privacy but there are no restrictions or limitations on the way the government can use a person’s personal information if the person uses her phone to scan the QR code at a store.

Human Rights Watch has warned: “Cambodia’s QR Code system is ripe for rights abuses because it lacks privacy protections for personal data. These concerns are heightened by the government’s stepped-up online surveillance of Cambodians since the outset of the pandemic, putting government critics and activists at greater risk.”


Mine Awareness

Yesterday was the celebration of Easter for much of the world but in Cambodia it was the International Day of Mine Awareness. The Cambodian Mine Awareness Authority put out a fact sheet for 2020, noting 10,051 landmines, 135 anti-tank mines, and 33, 312 other ERW (Explosive Remnants of War) were collected and destroyed. Small as the numbers are, that is the good news. The bad news is that in 2020 there were 65 casualties (17 deaths). That is on average a casualty every 5.6 days from munitions put down 50-60 years ago. Still killing and wounding….