dukekhmer

Hello ! Yes, I'm still alive and well after my bout with illness here in Cambodia.  What wonder drugs antibiotics really are ! 

Like a good soldier wounded but not yet dead, I went back to my village today.  I was happy to see my two Khmer translators and I think the feeling was mutual. It was a lot less hot today in the village.  We started out with a brief chat about the interviews they had done the day I was in bed with my stomach, head and intestines doing wild things to my body.   Not to my surprise, they fared well without their foreign friend. They were actually probably quite delighted to get a respite in the translation work because it can really be mind fatiguing.  

We decided to continue our villager interviews.  I went with Sreng and we walked for about 20 minutes through the green rice fields with a gentle wind blowing.  I even tried my hand at plowing behind two large, but malnourished oxen.  Those beasts are really strong and when you say "go" (also the word for 'cow' in Cambodian), they just bolt off !!!  Sreng had to run and stop them or they would have pulled me right into the next rice paddy !!   Both of the ladies at separate households whom we interviewed both lost their husbands, not under the Khmer Rouge though.  They had multiple kids and grandkids.  Dr. Judy recounted a story of a woman she met in another village who was only 22 years old and already had given birth to 10 kids, 9 of whom had died.  She'll want to be reincarnated in her next life either as a gynecologist or a Saint !!!

So did you know that there are several types of rice cultivation ?? My villagers practice the "wet rice" technique, but there is also "dry rice", "deep water" and some others.  

With wet-rice cultivation, seeds or seedlings are planted out by hand in rows in slightly drained, or puddled, fields. Throughout growing, water levels in paddy fields are kept to a few centimetres deep to prevent weed growth and ensure there's enough water for the plants to grow.   Water usually arrives either flooding during the rainy season.  The problem right now here in my village is lack of rain.  Villagers are pumping water from a pond to keep their fields irrigated.  But planting the rice in naturally swampy areas can also be done.  Or if they villagers have money, irrigating using a series of canals or wells, can be helpful. Fields are sometimes temporarily drained for weeding and fertilising. With wet-rice cultivation, seeds or seedlings are planted out by hand in rows in slightly drained, or puddled, fields.  This is apparantly back-breaking work for men & women and the water that they are standing in for hours on end is not too clean either !   Some pictures of rice cultivation and rice fields are on the way in my next blog article.

Throughout growing, water levels in paddy fields are kept to a few centimetres deep to prevent weed growth and ensure there's enough water for the plants to grow. This is done by either flooding during the rainy season, or by planting the ricein naturally swampy areas, or by irrigating using a series of canals or wells. Fields are sometimes temporarily drained for weeding and fertilising.   Then you must harvest by hand or with a sicle.  Then you thresh, winnow or hull.  I'll spare you the details of all these agronomical action verbs, but ust think about all the work that goes into rice cultivation when you buy your next bag of rice or eat your early-morning Rice Krispies (although those rice grains probably would have been genetically modified and picked, harvested and thresed by robots instead of some hardworking Cambodians !!).

Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of research.  We will do a few more and it'll be a wrap.  I'm glad and yet it was so utterly interesting.  I did an interview with a "samane" ( young novice) today which was captivating. He was only 15 years old and became a monk to study the Dharma.  A Sanskrit term, "Dharma" signifies the underlying order in nature, human life and behaviour considered to be in accord with that order. Ethically, it means 'right way of living' or 'proper conduct,' especially in a religious sense. Regarding spirituality, dharma might be considered the Way of the Higher Truths. Dharma is a central concept in religions and philosophies originating in India.    Some politicians, dictators and nasty killers should study the Dharma too !!!  the World would certainly be a better place, n'est-ce pas?

Here's a photo of me and Sreng, one of my translators :

more to come... bye bye from Cambodia !!!

Hello.  My research Thursday & Friday went well. We started our interviews of villagers.  At one interview we started with a woman and ended up after 25 minutes with more than 5 adults, 12 kids, 2 babies, 2 large cows, chickens and a dirty cat !!!

The interviews are what we call "semi-directive" which means that we have to ask certain questions in a structured way.  They are the opposite of "open" questions.  We were joined by the grad student who helps Dr. Ledgerwood out.  My translators are getting a bit better or perhaps I'm adapting more to their broken English. 

Here is a photo of Vicaet, the teacher who is incredibly motivated to learn English. He is just so nice and took time to show me the primary school where he teaches and to explain the panels about the Budda's life in the "vihear".  He only makes 50 US$ per month.  He lives with four other teachers in a one-room four bed wooden hut.  He left on Friday for the 3 month obligatory vacation that all Cambodian primary-school teachers must take.  His motorcycle was packed to the hilt with all his bags. He seemed so excited to go back and see his family. I'm buying 50 or 60 notebooks for his kids. I'll leave them with his foster mother, a local nun who has taken him under her wing.

Here a some photos of street life in Phnom Penh.  The first is a photo of the small stree-side gas pumps used by the tuk-tuk and motorcycle drivers.  It costs 1 US$ per liter which is relatively expensive for Cambodians.  I'm sure that this so called "gas"is cut with other strange liquids which most likely contributes to the massive CO2 pollution in this city.  The second is of a small shop selling various items. Cambodia is made up of thousands of small shops like this.  The people usually live above the shop.  You can see cigarettes and small cakes here.  They have a dog to protect the shop.  They have dirt floor and sodas in the big orange chest. 


             




















I had a minor head-ache and stomach gymnastics today and it must have been something I ate the other night in the Khmer restaurant where I went with 8 other colleagues. It was a barbecue grill in the middle of the table on which you could  grill chicken, pigs livers (yes !!), beef and other non-vegetarian food items.  I only ate rice, boiled chitlings and tofu that I specialty ordered and I still got sick !!  Our delicate Western stomaches are just not ready to attack such frisky larva, amoebas and other nasty bacteria lurking in almost every non-Western restaurant !  The ice here comes in huge blocks which they cut with a big saw like the ones lumberjacks use.  Not too hygienic, if I must say... But it does have flashbacks of Cookie Grandmom's childhood days when she said that they had big horse-driven ice carts plying the streets for customers in the pre-GE/Amana automatic ice-maker and integrated tv/internet era!

Fred arrived Saturday.  He seemed a bit tired after such a long flight and transit via Bangkok.  After sleeping a bit in his room, I took him out for a a visit to Wat Phom Park with all the wild monkeys, the Royal Palace, a stroll along the Mekong riverside.  After a meal at the Foreign Correspondant's Club, he got a foot massage to top off the tough day.   When I start back in the field tomorrow, he'll be on his own.  He' ll manage quite well, I suppose.

It rained really abundantly tonight (Sunday).  I took a tuk-tuk to the internet café and the not-too-clean water in the street was quite high.  The sewer system just can't take the massive amount of water that falls in a one or two-hour period so it just sits there with trash, sewage and other foul things floating about...

Here's a small shop selling Budda and other Buddist statuary.  I would love to ship home a giant Budda like the big one here in the photo, but it might just be a bit too heavy for Fed EX...

 I will start posting some querky signs that one encounters here in Cambodia.  This one is from the entrance to a night club.  It warns potential patrons that they can not enter with guns, knives, flip flops or bags.  Homeland security would have a heart attack here !!!  

Oh, by the way, they are indeed my White chunk Macadamia nut cookies and my intestinal amoeba-cleaning 7-Up can that you see here  !!!!

 Well, I'll leave you now to your busy lives.  Please come back again in a few days for the next edition of my Cambodian travel & study blog.  Big hugs and kisses from Cambodia !

Hello ! Bonjour !   Today, I woke up at a very early 5:15 am on a Monday morning in order to have breakfast, shower and be ready to leave at 6:30 am.  We each went to our respective villages today for the first time.  The ride out was fine and we finally reached my village after 45 minutes.  The village was very quiet so early.  My two Cambodian translators and I descended from the minivan, got our food rations for the day and several bottles of water.  I felt a tinge of anxiety as the van pulled away knowing that this was first anthropological field experience in a distant country.  We found the Abbot that we were set to interview in the old primary school house where he sleeps.  At least this time, he was not up on the roof doing repairs like on Saturday when we came to present our gift basket !

We started our semi-directive interviews with the Abbot.  Three temple committee members dressed in white and the "blue shirt" guy (the achar) were also present.  We sat on mats made of bamboo caning.  Trying sitting for over one hour without letting your feet face the Abbot.  It's sometimes quite painful, but a good exercise in patience.  I really must find a more confortable way of doing it.  Maybe I'll sneak in a pillow !  Oh, I forget to mention the ants that are everywhere on the mats and casually crawl up your leg during the interview process ! Yeah, they do bite !!!

We ate our 'rations' in the old "sala".  This was a run down cement building facing the new Sala built in 1983.  I can just not eat the chicken or beef they serve us in the meals.  One look at the scrawney chickens and the poor upside-down-travelling pigs (have a look at the picture below !) makes you lose your appetite.  I mainly eat rice and I had some raisins from California too.  After a brief snooze, will did another interview with a 67 year old nun.  It was conducted on a type of wooden raised platform under her wooden hut.  There were flies everywhere !  She had a shaved head and looked quite wise despite terrible dental work and what appeared to be developing cataracts.  My Khmer interpreters are really trying hard.  Their English is sometimes difficult to decipher, so I ask them to continue and explain to me after the interview.  My one guy only started his English after high school.  It's a hard language to learn.

Our research focuses on the rebirth of Cambodian buddhism after the Khmer Rouge period.  Similar interviews were conducted in 7 other villages back in 2003.  Dr.  Ledgerwood is following those interviews up with ours from 6 villages.  More on my research later this week.

Here are some additonal photos taken in Siem Riep and the surrounding countryside during our recent trip .

Dr. Ledgerwood with her traditional cotton Cambodian scarf and a temple :

      

The local drink : (a coconut with a straw ) !



Me looking like Laurence of Arabia in Siem Riep !! 

 A Budda inside one of the Angkor Wat temples :

                                        

I'll leave you to contemplate some peacful Cambodian countryside scenes... 

Zhom riep lire !!!  Come back again for the next installment of my Cambodian travel& study blog !

Hello blog readers !  Thanks for coming back.  We left the hotel in Phenom Pehn early on Saturday morning.  We had our same faithful and skilled minivan driver.  We were joined by a woman who works in the Dean's office at NIU and who knows Dr. Ledgerwood.  The drive to Siem Riep took six hours.  We past through rice fields, saw houses on stilts, and lots of water buffalo lounging about in the muddy water puddles left from the previous day's rains.  Some enchanting, post-card images !

        

We stopped two times to rest and drink a coffee or tea.  At one place they had fried spiders (no joking!!) and crunchy fried grasshoppers (standard stuff for SE Asia, I'm so told...).  My colleague, the most adventuresome ate the spiders and munched on the hoppers !!  Not me.   Oh, did I forget to mention the chickens and baby chicks walking free range through the place as we sipped our beverages ?!? For lunch, we had some delicious noodles, fish and rice (of course....).  There was a flea bitten dog wandering under the table while we ate.   The so called 'lavatories' here leave much to be desired by any antiseptic American.  You take a big handle and pour some water from a bucket into the hole after you have finished. Some spiders (living this time!) crawl up the wall while you're engaged.  Not for the faint hearted or unwary!

Our hotel was very calm and a mixture of traditional Khmer and Western.  The rooms are all wood, I think teak.  The breakfast was not that good, but the hotel was charming.   The local dog stole one of my colleagues flip flops the other morning, but it was soon retrieved.  You must take your shoes off when you enter a Khmer house and in this hotel as well.  All the better because shoes aren't too clean anyway, right ?


                              

We visited Angkor Wat with many other tourists.  That's me above in front of the main temple entrance. My colleagues who know Cambodia just can not believe how developed the whole city has become.  Some 2 million tourists are expected to visit next year alone !!  I'm not sure how the whole small infrastructure like water supply, sewers and the food industry will keep up with the pace.    

Located in northwestern Cambodia, Angkor, the capital of the Ancient Khmer Empire (and since 1992 a world heritage site) was possibly founded around the Ninth Century AD by King Jayavarman II. It reached its peak in the 12th Century under Kings Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII. The most beautiful and most famous monument in the city, Angkor Wat, lies about one kilometer south of the Royal town of Angkor Thom which was founded by Jayavarman VII. The Temple of Angkor Wat was dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu by King Suryavarman II, who reigned between AD 1131 and 1150. The Temple was constructed over a period of 30 years, and illustrates some of the most beautiful examples of Khmer and Hindu art. Covering an area of about 81 hectares, the complex consists of five towers, which are presently shown on the Cambodian national flag. These towers are believed to represent the five peaks of Mount Meru, the Home of Gods and Center of the Hindu Universe. Angkor Wat features the longest continuous bas-relief in the world, which runs along the outer gallery walls, narrating stories from Hindu mythology.  

Here's me at the top part of the temple after climbing some pretty precarious stairs.  Going down was the challenging part !   On m'avait d'ailleurs expliqué une fois en bas que plusieurs touristes sans bon Karma sont tombés et sont morts apres !!

    
                            like the hat ? 


The temple with its five towers is really magnificent.  You enter along a bridge over a very large moat.   The temple faces West, I think.  There are 'bas reliefs' (relief sculptures) on the left side which depict the Mahabharata, an ancient religious epic of India has existed in many forms, the main one being a text in ancient Sanskrit which may be the world's second largest book.  On this wall there is scene where the armies are tugging what appears to be a rope but its really a snake !

We stopped to talk to a monk who wanted to practice his English.  He chatted with my colleague and I through a window in Ankor Wat.

 Yesterday, we went into a more jungle-like area where we visited a temple with a reclining Budda.  It was very large and some parts were covered with gold leaf.  We had a picnic near a waterfall and some of the more adventurous among our group went swimming.  Here's a photo of the falls.  I was content to wet my feet not knowing exactly what unknown critters lurked beneath the water's surface...

I woke up at 5 am this morning to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat.  It was not as majestic as I expected, but still beautiful. We visited 5 temples today including the one with the banyon trees which appears in all the photos of Siem Riep.  It is amazing how the locals quarried the stones, brought them to Siem Riep, carved them and then positioned them.  What a feat !!  The stones have some wholes in them which facilitated their transport by elephants and humans.  

We ate at a buffet last night while watching some traditional Khmer dances performed by quite young dancers.  They were less experienced than those in Phenom Pehn, but still elegant and skilled, They really some wild gymnastics with their hands !

We visited one temple with a recling Budda.  It was just massive and had gold leaf which worshippers can paste on the Budda.

 

I called Mom tonight just to assure that all was ok.  Unfortunately, a plane crashed today in Cambodia killing 20 some people.  I was told it was in Southern Cambodia.  May the families of the victims have the strength to face such a sad thing. 

It's time to eat.  Walking to this internet café, I saw hundreds of bats flying in the night sky. What a site ! They're noisy too... 

We had the opportunity to visit the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient this morning.  Voir ici pour plus dínfos www.efeo.fr  It has been in Siem Riep since 1907 and has done some good conservation work.  It was an interesting visit.  Le mec qui nous a accueilli etait un archelogue et typiquement francais selon mes collegues apres la visite.  Il fumait une cigarette et parlait comme Maurice Chevalier !   

We returned to PP on Wednesday afternoon.   A six hour ride back again through the Cambodian countryside.  The drivers are insane and there are cows, dogs and even chickens regularly walking in the middle of the road!  Our driver is a skilled horn honker !!

We have two free days ahead of us.  I may go to visit Angkor Borei in the south.  This site is thought to be the site of Vyadapura the last capital of the Funan King Rudravaram in the Sixth century.  The University of Hawaii has done some very good work at this site  I plan to also visit an orphanage for children with Aids and give the Marynoll nuns who run it a modest donation for the kids.

Some other images from Cambodia for your blogging eyes :


 


Zhom riep lire (bye) !!