Mice in the House

Almost a month ago, after spotting a rat in our kitchen I put out some poison and eliminated one rat that took the bait. Then last week two times I saw two different mice on the kitchen counter. This time I tried the glue trap which will hold a smaller and weaker mouse but maybe not a rat. I put the trap on the kitchen floor last night and this morning I found FIVE mice in the trap! I’m going to wait a day and then put another trap out. There’s never just one mouse and even after catching five, there is probably still a large nest full of them.

Morning Offering


This woman is one of the staff from a local dentist’s office. One of her early morning tasks after she opens the doors in the morning is to make an offering of incense in the little shrine high up on the door frame. This is to keep all the spirits happy.

Thumb Prints

Probably most contracts and agreements in Cambodia are signed with thumbprints rather than written signatures although the latter are becoming more popular. Today I had to “sign” a rental agreement and our director had this handy little pocket ink pad for making thumb prints.

Booster #3

Today the members of Maryknoll Cambodia NGO received their fifth injection of the anti-Covid vaccine. It was booster shot #3. Our first three injections were AstraZeneca vaccine and the last two were Pfizer. Will they offer protection against the B5 variant that is spreading?

Will it work out?

When Covid closed the churches in March, 2020 our English Catholic Community had to leave our “home” at World Vision on the south side of Phnom Penh. Many people–those who didn’t leave the country when so many schools and businesses closed–bemoaned the need to travel across Phnom Penh to St. Joseph Church for mass. Now we have been able to resume mass on the south side again, at the DK Centre. It offers quite a nice auditorium that we used before special occasions like Ash Wednesday.

We are having our Saturday mass there during the month of July to see if people find out about the new venue and if they come. We need a certain number of people to be able to afford this new expense.

Covid Deja Vu

Cambodia has done a really credible job of handling Covid-19. The government pushed full vaccination for everyone and people complied, making Cambodia one of the most fully vaccinated countries in the world. And in May and June and July, 2022, Cambodia went 52 days without a new infection. That ended several days ago, though, as PCR testing detected 5 to 15 new infections each day. The continuing new infections are a concern but not unduly alarming because of the high vaccination rate which makes the Covid experience generally a mild one. The handful of new infections each day is only the tip of the iceberg, however. Those are just the people sent for testing by a doctor. Many, many other people are using rapid tests and discovering they are infected, but those are not included in the government statistics.

Banned…except when they are not

An article in yesterday’s Khmer Times newspaper makes it pretty clear that right-hand drive vehicles are banned in Cambodia. In other countries “banned” would mean you can’t use them. But this is Cambodia:

  • About 10 or 12 years ago a law was passed outlawing right-hand vehicles.
  • About a year later in one of his famous rambling speeches, the prime minister declared that actually right-hand vehicles could keep operating.
  • It is not uncommon to see right-hand cars on the streets here.
  • The government even issues a special license plate for right-hand vehicles–which are illegal according to the law that is ignored.

Now in the same article with the above headline, the PM says:

  • Right-hand vehicles will no longer be allowed to be imported into the country. Meaning that all along, even though they were banned they were still able to be brought into the kingdom.
  • The right-hand drives can continue to be used but now the drivers have to pay taxes on them. Meaning that previously, if you drove an illegal right-hand vehicle, you didn’t need to pay taxes while the legal drivers did.
  • More than half of the R-H cars here have been converted to left-hand drive but that will no longer be required.
  • “He also urged the people not to import right-hand drive cars anymore.” So much for a ban.