Preference for the Floor

This woman working in a curtain shop illustrates a cultural aspect of life in Cambodia: much of life here is lived on the floor.  Poor rural families could not afford tables, chairs, etc.—and didn’t have houses that would support furniture (remember most of the houses were bamboo slat floors on frames up on stilts)—and so the people cooked, ate, slept, played, and worked on the floor.  Those people moved to the city and continued the same life style so that it is common to see people sitting on the floor doing any number of different jobs.

Notable Quotes

 

“A loose translation of ‘America first’ now means all others shall be ignored or denied or bombed out of existence, if necessary, to achieve our own power and profits, our own goals and good.”

~ Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister / Spiritual writer

Looking at Each Other

Going across town to mass early one morning I caught this picture of a little boy playing on the back of a truck.  He was looking at me as I took the picture, and down in the lower left corner you can see me (in the rearview mirror) looking at him.  I was shooting the pictures from chest level so you can’t see the camera.

Motorcycle Loads #227

Tinkers are part of the American tradition, the men (I never heard of any women tinkers) who traveled with their load of pots and pans and metalware through the rural areas of the country.  Cambodia has literally tinkers (although the metalware today is made of plastic) but there are a plethora of other itinerant vendors, too.  This man sells brightly colored sheets and blanket and pillows and bolsters.  I’ve often wondered what life is like for these individuals on the road from dawn to dusk and perhaps not selling anything all day but still needing to put gas in the motorcycle and provide something for the family to eat that day.

Pentecost 2017

For quite a few years the Pentecost liturgy at St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh has brought together the English, French, Khmer, and Korean-speaking Catholic communities at one mass presided over by Bishop Olivier.  All of these communities have used St. Joseph Church as their base at different times, meeting in different buildings at different times on the weekend.  Today we had our gathering and a central part of the ceremony was the conferring of the sacrament of confirmation on 37 mostly young people.  Here, dressed in traditional Khmer garb and traditional sitting position, they listen as Bishop Olivier has an opening prayer.  Because of the large crowd when all the communities are together, the liturgy was held on an outside stage covered with a light tenting to keep everyone out of the sun.

Notable Quotes

 

“The truth is that we no longer have a real Congress that determines together what is good for the entire country. We have power politics, the abandonment of consensus, in a time of serious national division. The party with the most seats runs the country for its own satisfaction. How long that can possibly last is anybody’s guess.”

~ Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister / Spiritual writer

 

 

Washing the Dishes

On a recent trip to Kampot Province, we visited our DDP House hostel for students in our Education Project just as they were finishing their lunch.  They take turns doing the chores and it was this young man’s day to wash the cooking pots.

Motorcycle Loads #225

This is a motorcycle loaded up right across the street from the Maryknoll office where I live.  Probably most families run some kind of small business on the side, and every morning the man who owns this motorcycle loads it up with boxes of snack foods that he stores in his house and delivers them somewhere.  It’s just part of the culture.  As you can see there’s not much room for the driver to sit.

Sunscreen or Hijab?

Overtaking this woman from behind, at first I thought it was a Muslim woman with a hijab since the head covering was under her helmet as a hijab would be.  But then when I got beside her to take this picture, I saw that (I think) it is just a light veil or shawl that she is using to block the sun, protecting even her face, and it is thin enough that it would fit under the helmet.  For many Cambodian women, keeping their skin lighter in color is just about as demanding a principle as following Islam for the true believers.  Notice this woman makes sure that not even her hands are exposed to the sun.