The real Cambodia

 

Each day they take me for a huge lunch at a Cambodian restaurant, where the food is very tasty although sometimes of unknown origin.....The standard cost is $1.50 - a real bargain even by Phnom Penh standards.

 

I have also developed a social life in the city: one of the other mature VSO volunteers at the Centre, Vanessa,  invited me to join her and a few others one evening, and that has developed into regular meetings with  other volunteers from various professional  backgrounds, mostly VSO.

 

My tuk-tuk driver, Sok Neang, continues to ferry me everywhere: to work and back, to restaurants in the evening, and he and his family have become real friends. He even took me to see his room where he lives in the city with two friends, (his wife, son, and extended family live in their village about 20 miles from Phnom Penh). The room is very basic, with dreadful facilities for three people, and costs them $70 per month to rent.

 

I have also paid another visit to Sok Neang’s village, which again was a fascinating experience... The drive from Phnom Penh to the village takes about 2 hours each way by tuk-tuk, and after the first few miles the roads deteriorate into tracks, and it feels quite remote, although electricity is slowly reaching the villages. They hope to have it in Sok Neang’s village later this year, but they have no idea when they might have running water and a sewage system, probably not for many years.

 

Lunch was served at 10.45 am, this time chicken curries and a fish cooked with all sorts of unusual herbs and spices, washed down with lots of beer, and I was able to take many more photos of the family. They are all so hospitable, and the family is clearly of huge importance to them all, a lesson for us all in the west.

 

Despite their poverty they seem to be able to make the most of things and to enjoy their lives, although their prospects for improving their conditions in the near future are not good. There is a growing middle class in the cities, but the rural poor – who are most of the population – continue to struggle to survive.