Free weekend

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 !