Week 2: Beauty

The first week in Phnom Penh I was in complete culture shock. My international travel has consisted of a week trip in Mexico and 30 days of cycling through Canada. After becoming accustomed to the smells, sounds, and sights, I am finally able to start appreciating the beauty this city has to offer. The architecture in many places is truly amazing, it is intricate and colorful. Last week Malaika, Diana, and I completed the data collection for our project. For Malaika and I this consisted of visiting the factory district to interview young woman during their lunch break, we did this daily from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. Then we would find a gas station with an indoor table to escape the heat and dust, eat lunch and around 2:00 pm we went to the KTV's to interview the young women there. KTV's are places where men can pay for a room and hire girls to karaoke with and entertain them. During these interviews I have had the opportunity to be in an intimate conversation with many Cambodian women and they are stunning.  The week was long, hot, sweaty, and dusty, but it was a really great experience, and because of it I got to see parts of Phnom Penh and Cambodian culture I would otherwise never have seen.

Each day during our lunch break we would have about 1-1.5 hours in between when the factory workers lunches were done and when the KTV/Beer garden woman would be available for interview. One day Thary (left) and Somphors (right) decided to teach us the Khmer alphabet complete with 33 letters, excluding vowels, there are 22 more of those (not pictured). They then translated our names into Khmer. The characters used for our names is dependent on how we want our name to sound. There was a lot of discussion about weather mine should be Ka-saun-Dra or Ka-saun-Tra. Thary and Somphors work for Mother's Heart as social workers, but for the week were our translators. They are really great girls, and we adore them. Lower left photo, is an actual headline from the paper last week. Although rape is not legal here certain aspects of Cambodian culture make it acceptable. The last photo is a market we passed on our way to the factory district. 

Top left, a photo of Thary taken to show the: amount of dust in the area we were traveling/working in, the large truck behind her, and the dirt and trash on the side of the road. When traveling on the roads here there are massive semis, which are more common in the factory district, then the tuk tuks which are significantly smaller, and the motos. Top right, this is the best kept pile of trash I have seen while in Cambodia. Usually it is a pile of trash without a container to contain it. There are trash piles all over the place, big and small, and they smell pretty awful. Middle left, this is a common site throughout the city. it is a wheel barrel like cart, the top is covered in very small clams, that have been cooked and seasoned, they are sold by the can full. Middle right, another photo of the outdoor market we passed daily, pictured are bowels of cow intestine for sale. Lower left, this was an awful traffic jam we were in last week, imagine this traffic on all sides of you. Because there is no order/lanes of traffic, the traffic jams are basically a large crowd of all size vehicles, all trying to go in different directions. Lower right, this is a common sight when farther away from a convenient gas station. Gas here is sold by the liter. These stands use old Pepsi and Coca-cola glass liter bottles to fill with gasoline. When you buy they liter, you dont get to keep the glass!