Nothing stays the same

The foreign population of Phnom Penh is constantly turning over.  We see that in our parish community where we need to recruit new ministers every four or five months because so many are rotated out or reassigned.  And it’s the same with the buildings here.  Places that I pass often have been family homes, a restaurant, a crocodile farm, a bar and brothel in quick succession.  One group moves out and the other moves in with the least bit of disruption.

An illustration is the house in these pictures.  Just a year and a half ago, it was a residence for high-ranking US Embassy personnel.  I was often there for meetings, dinners, birthdays, etc., with the family with four children who lived there.  Yesterday it opened as some sort of high-end coffee shop!

Before
After

But he’s not a dictator! (He says.)

Last month Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won all 125 seats in the legislature.  That would be a truly remarkable accomplishment in a real election in a real democracy.  But the CPP didn’t play by the normal rules.  First the leadership of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was arrested and jailed or forced into exile.  Then the party itself was declared illegal and dissolved.  Since the CNRP was the only strong opposition party, it’s no wonder that the CPP took all the marbles.

Hun Sen faced a barrage of international criticism for not allowing a free and fair election.  He anticipated that so in the eighteen months before the election, he encouraged (maybe even created) opposition parties which “contested” the election he won so handily.  Of course because they were small, new, and inexperienced—and so many, the nineteen opposition parties couldn’t capture much of the vote.  Hun Sen touted their participation in the election, though, to counter claims that it was a one-party election.

Another move after the election, to further counter the claims of a rigged election, has been to release the opposition members his courts had jailed before the election.  See the headline above.  The opposition leaders had been nullified during the campaign and now are no longer a threat so he appeals to the king to issue royal pardons and he thinks it makes him look good and “kind” (his word).  I think most people see through that ruse, though.

Motorcycle Loads #251

Chickens don’t get no respect in Cambodia!

First they’re trussed up an laid out on the ground so that the motorcycle driver can load them efficiently.
Then they head out for their last ride. I can’t imagine it’s a very pleasant experience because no one’s thinking about their welfare.

Thank You, Aaron

Aaron Wong is a sign language linguist from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  For the last three weeks he has been in Cambodia, training the members of our sign language committee in the basics of sign language linguistics to help them promote and develop the national sign language better.  Aaron has done a wonderful job, a resource that we have waited for for several years.  Today was the last day of the training and after the deaf students expressed their appreciation for his work, Charlie Dittmeier offered him two of the DDP khramas that we give to our visitors.