About Cambodia

Of course there is heaps on the net about Cambodia, here are a few sites that might be useful and interesting:

Cambodian Culture
This one always come up when I do a google search for something about Cambodian culture- it has lots of photos and short simple explanations for things in our everyday life. Exploring this site will give you a feel for what it is like to live here, though expats eyes.


CIA factbook on Cambodia

NEWS

The News in photos- John Vink

Phnom Penh Post
Daily news paper

KI Media
Dedicated to publishing sensitive information about Cambodia


Air Asia- budget airline

OMF
What does OMF Cambodia do ?
"Through God's grace we long to see the transformation of Cambodia through the proclamation and demonstration of the good news of Jesus Christ.
Our mission is to glorify God by modelling Christ in our daily lives, ministering through compassion, teaching and training, making disciples, establishing churches, equipping leaders and mobilizing the church for local and cross-cultural mission."

Hagar
"Hagar restores women and children who have been victims of human rights abuse to life in all its fullness. Recovery can take a long time, but Hagar is committed for the long run - until each woman and child is able to reintegrate into community again."

Sunshine Centre
Providing a supportive, caring, enriching and stimulating place for children to thrive

ICC
"International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) is a Christian development organization comprised of seven agencies who have been involved in relief and development work since 1991. ICC's purpose is to serve the needs of the people and the nation of Cambodia in education, health, food security, social services and community development. ICC aims to train the people of Cambodia in professional and leadership skills, to strengthen local organizations and to demonstrate unity and cooperation as we work with other organizations."


World Relief
"Now in it's 14th year in Cambodia, World Relief is committed to working alongside the Church of Cambodia in building its capacity to serve the poor in the name of Jesus Christ so that the healing and transforming power of the Kingdom of God is manifested in all its fullness in Cambodia."

Chab Dai
"The vision behind Chab Dai (literally “joining hands” in Khmer) was founded in Cambodia in 2005. Chab Dai aims to bring an end to trafficking and sexual exploitation through coalition building, community prevention, advocacy and research. In addition to the office in Cambodia, the vision of Chab Dai has been expanded into the USA and Canada."

Friends blogs

Donna, Dotti, Allan, Cadenzane, McMoments

Today in Cambodia...

If you want to find out the latest about the Cambodia/Thai tension you may have heard on the news this month or the national election this Sunday, try these links:
Phnom Penh Post
Everyday
Asian Observer
Mirror (mirrors Cambodian language media)

Some blogs that have political/ sensitive Cambodian news: KI media and Khmerization

Political debate blog

A blog by a Cambodian living in Australia. It's an interesting blog, here is why its written:



" people are talking freely and daringly about the injustices around the world, and particularly about the current state of affairs of their motherland, Cambodia. For this reason, and this reason a lone, that I decided to create my own blog in order to enter into the political debate about the injustices, human right abuses, corruption and poverty in order to make a contirbution to improving things in the world, but particularly in my motherland, Cambodia."

Some more links

Blog of a Aussie Christian girl who works at a kids centre, I don't know her but her blog is interesting.


And this blog has comments about everyday issues here, such as dogs (for food) , crocs (for pets) , corruption and more.

Sunshine Centre links

There are a few Aussie CMS missionarys in Cambodia. One of them works at a centre for kids. There are heaps of orphanages in Phnom Penh, but this is a bit different.
It was started when some CMSers saw kids working as rubbish collectors. They opened a place kids could wash, eat, get medical care etc.
I understand that many of the children in orphanages in Cambodia do have parents still living. Sometimes if parents can't look after their kids they end up living in orphanages.

Sunshine Centre tries to help the children and their whole family too, so the kids can grow up in their family.

If you want to know more you can visit their new website Sunshine Centre and have a look at the Sunshine blog.

Explore Cambodia (on the web)

Instead of putting links in the side bar I'm putting them here, but if you want to find them in the future look under topics (labels) in side bar and go to "Links". Let me know if these don't work.

News/Current Affairs sites- Find out what's happening in Cambodia


Asia Observer, Everyday ,Phnom Penh Post (this is a twice monthly paper we read)
South Eastern Globe (a monthly magazine, only a year old,we entered the photo competition as you'll see if you download this months)


Sensitive information about Cambodia (another version of the news) also has links to other news sites. The Mirror "Mirroring the Khmer language press - with regular editorial comment "

About Cambodia

Cambodian Information Center and the CIA factbook


Visiting Cambodia?

Sustainable tourism
Embassy of Cambodia in Australia and Embassy of Australia in Cambodia
Smart traveller
There are heaps of tourist guides click here for Pocket Guide or here for the Canby one. These and many others have free hard copies you can get at lots of cafes etc. See also the Cambodian Goverment Tourism site.

The guessed photo

Thanks everyone who guessed. (Click here to see the photo.)

What else is on the road in this photo?

Photo guesses:

Looks like a marquee of some sort. Is it some markets? If it is, there's not too many people around.

Ashfelt, and Is it a wedding? in which case there may be music to go with the picture

a Cambodian massage parlour
A Cambodian motel

School Animal stable Stalls Sweatshop Massage shop

I think the thing on the road is a marquee for a funeral. or maybe a wedding. That's what they had on a road in Thailand.

guess 1 - restaurants/ eateries
guess 2 - shops or something like that
guess 3 - toilets???

It is a wedding! People set up marquee in the middle of the road and the traffic just has to cope with it. This is also done for funerals and other gatherings. In these photos you can see the tables and chairs being set up.




When you arrive at the wedding meal you sit at one of these tables. When your table is full they will start bring food. If you don’t have enough people you won’t get served!

I usually go to a wedding thinking it will be a good time to practice my listening and speaking skills (in Khmer language). But usually the music is too loud.

It's so colourful- people wear brightly coloured clothes. And there is often silly string involved.

Girls get really dressed up to go to weddings, they might get their hair done at the hairdresser, paint their nails and wear full make up. I’m talking glitter, false eye lashes and everything!

This morning I was woken up by a wedding, not an unusual occurrence. The music and monk’s chanting is so loud. Where I used to live they kept the noise between 6.30am and 9pm. But in the part of town I live in now the noise can be going all night! I’m just hoping the wedding I can hear today is a one day event, not a three day one!

Want to know more about Khmer weddings? For more photos and stuff try clicking here, or here

or here.

Meet some other people

I just started reading a blog of another Aussie who lives in Cambodia. She lives in a remote area. If you want to read click here: Maaike Prins. Some other websites of people we know in Cambodia include :
Axel (you'll only be able to read it if you know Danish)
Paul (you'll only be able to read it if you know "American")

Also some Cambodians- they write in English!
Thouen and Sithuon and Lysom

And some other friends...(not in Cambodia- they also write in English)
Ang, Bec, Debbie, Bern, Jaime, Prilz, Jacqui, and Mum

Kids get no breakfast

I'm trying to restrain myself and not put a link to everything I read about what's happening here these days, but here is just one more article :Kids get no free breakfast

And one more : BBC: How to solve the global food crisis. An interesting article, and people can comment at the bottom of it- there are interesting comments!

Inflation 3

Here is a link to The Food Price Crisis on the Radio Australia website.

Phnom Penh Evacuation April 17th

Many people had died. The war had being going for 5 years. There wasn’t any hope of winning it. The city was filling up with refugees who escaped the fighting in the countryside. But now the war was about to end. A cause for celebration?

There was some cheering on April 17th 1975, but it didn’t last long. Cambodia had actually been liberated from the war into something worse.

Khmer Rouge took the capital on the 17th April 1975 and ordered everyone to leave the city straight away. The black pyjama clad soldiers, mostly youths, said the U.S was going to bomb Phnom Penh. The city’s residents were told to only take enough food and clothes for three days, when the bombing was over they could come back. Gunfire emphasised their commands.

Over the next few days the two million people who had been in Phnom Penh had to walk out of it. Refugees who had recently fled to the city, rich families, hospital patients- everyone. And keep in mind April is The Hottest Month of the Year. CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS

But they couldn’t go back to the city after three days. This was the beginning of 3 years, 8 months and 21 days that Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot.

Money, schools and religion was abolished. It was to be a classless society where everyone was a farmer. Underfed and overworked people were constantly tired, hungry and often sick.

Kimsoeun was born during this time. His father was one of the many people who died during Pol Pot time. One to two million people died, it’s hard to know exactly.

For more click here : Cambodian Holocaust or here : The end of Cambodia; the beginning of a nightmare.

The Killings Fields movie (1984) shows these events.

A Cambodia girl who was 9 at the time, and another who was 5 survived. You can read their stories in “When Broken Glass Floats” , by Chanrithy Him and
“First they killed my father”, byLoung Ung

And there’s more….

Tears of my Soul by Sokreaksa Himm
Killing Fields, Living Fields byDon Cormack
Year Zero, Francois Ponchaud
Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land, Henry Kamm
The Tragedy of Cambodian History, David Chandler

And there is heaps more but I'm pretty sure my readers have stopped clicking and reading by now!

Inflation part 2

Last October inflation was starting to become an issue, now it’s become a big issue. Below are just a few things I heard or read over the weekend. Apparently prices in 2008 will be 30% higher than in 2007.


*Yesterday I went to an English language Christian church service. On the hand out there was a note encouraging members of the congregation to consider what kind of pay rise they should be giving their staff.

*Also yesterday was a protest in town against the price increases, click here for photos or here to read a Yahoo News article about it.

*Pork sellers are selling less pork; people can’t afford to buy so much food these days. But sellers of charcoal are having a boom because cooking gas is so expensive.

*Many people from all over Cambodia live in Phnom Penh and work in factories. On the front of the Phnom Penh Post this fortnight is an article about how many are going back to the provinces. The cost of living in the city is becoming too great. Rent, food everything is going up so fast. Apparently there might be a $6 a month wage increase, but people say this is still not enough, it doesn’t reflect the magnitude of inflation. (I think the minimum factory workers wage is $50 per month. And it seems people are here so they can earn money to send to their families in the provinces.)

“Cambodia’s annualised rate of food inflation hit 24% last month- the highest in almost a decade, and one of the highest in the region.” (PP Post, Cat Barton, April 4-17 2008)

Inflation

My husband grew up mainly eating rice and prahok, that’s all they could afford. I think many Cambodians are in a similar situation, and they must be having a really hard time at the moment.

Since September prices have been going up faster than usual. In October when we first noticed, it was quite scary.


According to the March SE Globe:


“Consumer price inflation spiked to more than 10% at the end of 2007, over double its average level in the preceding five years.”

“Food prices are under special pressure, with staples such as rice, fish, pork, beef, vegetables and fruit up by over 30% last year, and with the biggest rises in the last few months.”

“Rising fuel prices are adding further pressure, felt both directly and as add-ons to transport and production cost. There is evidence that the trend will continue in 2008.”

South Eastern Globe, March 2008, Philipp Coggan
www.se-globe.com


Just in the last few weeks we’ve been noticing inflation everywhere. Prahok more than doubled it’s price in the last 12 month, I read in the Cambodia Daily on March 18.



Over the next few days I heard people talking about how rice was about to get heaps more expensive. It’s already been increasing in price over the last six months, how will people afford it if it increases more? I was listening to Radio Australia one night and there was a program about the rice shortage in the world at the moment. Lots of countries have stopped exporting rice including India and Australia. The next day (March 26) I read Cambodia had just stopped exporting rice too.

Within days of this happening a bottle of cooking gas went from $20 USD to $40. In October we stopped using our electric kettle and rice cooker. To save money we started doing everything on our two gas hot plates. But now gas has gone up too!

It seemed logical to me that I should give my language helpers a pay rise. When I was explaining this to one of them she thought it was a really strange idea.



“Why? I’ve never heard of this before?” Even though the cost of everything is going up people are still earning the same amount. In some cases earning less- people have less money to spend so are buying less. For example my mother in law sells ready made breakfast food. She gets up around 5am each morning to finish cooking and start selling. Her costs are rising but her customers declining.


For us it may mean that we cut back on some things- like beef and dairy products for example*. But what does it mean for people who couldn’t afford those types of foods to begin with?

This is meant to be just a snap shot of our life, not an economic analysis. There a various reasons why this is all happening. It’s connected to agricultural/environment issues both here and internationally, as well as other things that are happening in the economy and politics. I didn’t mention land prices; these have also been going up faster and faster. If you want to know more you could start with these links : Food inflation, Rice price hike, , some more comments on this and what the BBC has to say about rice in Asia these days.

*Beef and dairy
When I first got to Cambodia 1 litre of UHT milk cost 90cents. Currently the closest shop to us is selling it for 1.55-1.70.
A year ago a kg of beef cost $4. In October it went up to $4.50. Last month it went up to $5.