After just shy of three years in Cambodia we finally made it back to North America on our first home leave. The first sign of culture shock on this trip has been particularly rough. It started when we arrived at the Seoul airport and discovered that most of the toilets required toilet paper. I haven’t…
And we’re on our way!
And we’re on our way back to North America for our first home leave! I’m writing from the Seoul airport where we have a six hour layover. It’s been a long time since we’ve been home and almost as long since we’ve left the Kingdom of Cambodia. The last time we left Cambodia was a…
2022 Commune Elections
This weekend Cambodia held commune elections as it does every five years. In 2017, the major opposition party gained significant ground in the commune elections and was then dissolved by the Cambodian supreme court. While there are, currently, registered 17 political parties there is no effective opposition and many popular opposition politicians have gone into…
Rats! Meet Our Office’s New Rat Deterrent
Since we arrived in 2019, we’ve been in a losing struggle against the rats that keep on invading the Mennonite Central Committee office here in Phnom Penh. When we first arrived, the office had a small dog who was a terrific rattier but – no matter how many she killed – it seemed to served…
Battambang, Kuy Teav, and a not so Bamboo Train
In January, we made a long weekend trip to Battambang province to celebrate Sokea’s engagement. We have been waiting to write about it until after she announced her engagement on social media (which she did earlier this month). We travelled by bus with Ringsey and Doungchann. It was a very long, very bumpy ride due…
2022 Traditional Khmer Photoshoot
As has become tradition, two weekends ago we joined the ‘GSL’ team for a photoshoot in traditional Khmer clothing. GSL stands for Global Service Learning; it’s the department that our YAMEN and SALT exchange program fits under. There are a number of shops in Phnom Penh where you can inexpensively rent traditional Khmer outfits and have your…
Two stories about gunmen in today’s news
Today there are two stories about gunmen in the Phnom Penh newspapers. The local story is about a ‘Phantom Gunman’ who – twice this week – has driven through different neighborhoods at night and fired 3 to 4 shots into the air before driving off. The other story is the horrific and tragically familiar school…
Home Leave 2022
Next month we will finally be on our long delayed first home leave. We will be spending June in Pennsylvania/New Jersey, United States and July in Saskatchewan, Canada. Home leave is not purely a time of respite and reconnection, we will still have some meetings and work to do, but we are looking forward to…
100 Mangoes
The MCC Cambodia office was closed on Monday in observance of the Easter holiday. Normally we would have had Friday off but we already had Friday off for the national Khmer New Year holiday. Crystal spent her day off picking 100 mangoes from the trees around our courtyard. The ripe ones that we didn’t immediately…
Cultural differences between Cambodia and North America
In our exchange program files I came across a document on cultural differences between Cambodia and North America. It was written by a former Cambodian staff – in the Connecting Peoples Coordinator role – for a specific situation and I’ve rewritten it to remove the specifics. I wanted to share it here as a Cambodian’s…