A good project

Last fall I took a very interesting course at my university, called ”Environment and development”. The class was a nice contrast to my courses in economics! We of course talked a lot about environment and pollution, but also fundemental questions like what our relationship to nature really is, and what responsibility we have towards it. Does nature have a value in itself, or just through how it can help people? We also talked about “development”. The word naturally just means a change, or a progress of some sort. But we often use it synonymously with industrialization, increased production and GDP, increased “standard of living”. Maybe at any cost? So when I went to Cambodia, I was excited over seeing a so called developing country up close. How NGOs did their work, what kind of aid proved to be most successful.

Before going, I learnt that my very cool doctor had actually worked there for some time with her husband. They’re both doctors, and they decided to do something completely different for a few months, in a whole new place. They started an initiative where they went around in boats to the people in the floating villages on the Tonle Sap, and provided medical care to the people who needed it. Needless to say, it was normally very hard for these villagers to go to a medical institution for help. One year later she was very happy and proud to hear that the project had continued without them, now operated by local Cambodian doctors. I learnt that a big problem with these initiatives started by foreigners, is that they’re not sustainable for when they leave. They might stay for a few months or a year, and then the locals don’t have the compentence or the funding to continue the project. And worse, sometimes the locals have learnt to depend on the temporary projects, and might suffer when it suddenly disappears.

I met a nice guy who worked for an NGO called BB2C, they had project on water pumps used in agriculture. About 85 % of the population are farmers, so this is a very important focus area in Cambodia. They struggle to grow crops during the dry season, november – may, so they import a lot of fruits and vegetables from Vietnam, and the prices are extra high during this time of the year. Their idea was to follow the model of a project in Kenya called KickStart. They would buy efficient, environmental friendly water pumps that were easy to operate, and that were simple to maintain and repair. The farmers could use the pumps to water their fields efficiently, get higher yield and even grow crops outside the rainy season. The NGO first tried giving away a certain number of pumps as a trial project, with the criteria that the farmers who received them wanted to use them, and had access to water that could be pumped up.

One year later the NGO returned to see what results the farmers had gotten with the pumps. They were surprised to find that only a very small amount of the pumps were still in use, most of them stood covered in dust and almost untouched. When trying to find out why the farmers weren’t using the pumps, even though they had gotten the training and had been guaranteed larger crops if they did use them, the reasons were varied. Some had found it too complicated, and given up. Some weren’t motivated after all to change the way they worked on their land. Some didn’t have as good access to water as they had claimed to have. The project was deemed pretty unsuccesful, and they decided to sell the pumps instead of just giving them away.

They sold them for less than the production cost, I believe for about 100 dollars, and they went to small villages to give training in how to use them and fix them. Often families or neighbourhoods would buy a pump together, so that more people would benefit from the purchase. One year later, the NGO was happy to see that basically all the pumps were in use, and the farmers had all gotten very good results and increased incomes. If something was wrong with the pump, you could take it apart with your hands without using tools, and they were able to fix it themselves. The pump didn’t need electricity or gasoline to run, so it was a long-term environmentally sustainable solution. I thought this was an interesting story! When the farmers and the communities decided for themselves to invest some money in the pump, they felt a full ownership and responsibilty for the project. I bet they also got a great feeling of accomplishment  when they made this investment work, and could harvest a larger crop for themselves and their families. Inspiring.

Photo from the NGO's website.

Summer, still

The other day I felt it. For maybe the first time in Norway this year, that special summer feeling. The day before I had spent a very nice evening at a friend's summer house in Moss, we had taken a swim in the lovely ocean water, and eaten shrimps with white bread, lemon and mayonnaise, a traditional summer dish in Norway. When the night got cooler we gathered around an outside fireplace and drank red wine under wool blankets. A wonderful evening. But the next day I was just walking along the street on my way to a little shop, waiting for my friend to pick me up in her car and taking me to the train station. The sun was warming me, I heard a car going by somewhere far away, and there were hardly any other people around. I felt a remarkable calm, and the biggest concern I had on my mind, was whether or not I would have time to buy an ice cream in the shop before my friend arrived.

It struck me that this is the true wonder of the summer holiday, when you are able to be so blank, to have so few concerns, and just enjoy the moment. This was very easy when I was a child, but has become more difficult the older I have gotten. Not that I'm always super worried about things, but I can rarely say that I don't have any concerns at all. Especially not this summer, which has been a sad one for Norway.

Cambodia now seems very far away. The streets, the restaurants, my apartment. Sitting on my friend Dar's motor bike. I wasn't that impressed by the book "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", which I tried reading a few months back, but I liked how he talked about riding a motor cycle:

On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.

Just before leaving Cambodia, I got the sweetest Facebook message from my friend:

"Hey, are you still in Cambodia? I'm in the Phillippines, alone and crying! No, just kidding. No, not really. Maybe I can come visit you?"

I sent her my warmest invitation to The Kingdom of Wonder (or the kingdom of water, as my friend calls it in the rainy season), but she didn't end up having the time to come. It still made me think of how lucky I am to have friends in different parts of the world. The cost of the plane ticket will always be an obstacle, but when you have a friend on the other side of the journey, travelling becomes so much easier. Almost as if they were just on the other side of a fence in a field. Jump over, and come see my world.

I saw this photo that Alisa took of me and Indre, the day Indre left Cambodia.

We're not far from the Monument of Indepence.  Im not sure why I like this photo so much. It's crooked and colourful, just like Phnom Penh. Maybe because it already looks a bit old. It's as if I can imagine myself many years from now, looking at this photograph and remembering the day. This is the person I was, May 24th 2011. This was my face, my arms, my legs. The worn-out shoes that I had used every day for five months, when I wasn't barefoot in white sand. The bag I bought at the Tuoltompuong market. These were the clouds, the light, the scorching sun. This was the tan girl I worked with and laughed with and ate with in our gloomy little office. These were the streets, the bikes, the puddles that made up Phnom Penh.

The disaster July 22nd

July 22nd I had been home from Cambodia a bit more than a week. I was walking in the center of Oslo with my good friend Mari, who was a bit annoyed with me because I had been late to meet her. We were passing the National Theatre, headed up to Egertorget, when the bomb went off.

The biggest bang we had ever heard, we held our ears and were very startled. It sounded like it came from exactly where we were headed. Some people around us just stood and stared towards where the sound came from, others laughed it off and continued on their way, some people looked scared and started running. My friend thought it had been a gas explosion or some sort of accident, but we decided to go home to her parents' house not far from the town center. Mari read the news on her iPhone, and we soon learned that the explosion had been next to the government's head office. It didn't seem likely that it could have been an accident. The destruction was huge, it said, and we could only imagine how many people could have died. We were welcomed by Mari's parents, who were just as shocked and sad as we were. Still I was very happy to be able to be there, seeing that my own family was on vacation in France. They were so sweet to us, preparing a nice lunch and not constantly watching the news. I didn't want to see it or hear it. I felt like my country was breaking in front of my eyes. And then the news about the shooting came.

I don't know how common this is in other countries, but in Norway all the big political parties have youth organizations. These organizations work to involve youth in politics, and to influence their "mother party" and decisions made in the parliament. They all have camps during the summer. The biggest party in government now is the Labour Party, and their youth organization is AUF. When I was in high school I was a member of SU, the youth organization of the Socialistic Left Party, and we would bump into AUF-people on different occasions in the political scene. We always saw them as a bit too far to the right, but they were cool people and good to discuss politics with. July 22nd AUF had their summer camp on the island Utøya, and SU was supposed to have their camp a few days after.

The strange message came from the news, that there were some shots being fired at Utøya. We tried to stay calm, thinking that it was nothing serious. But unfortunately, the news just became worse every minute. Kids as young as 14 years old had swum across the freezing waters from Utøya, where the currents are very strong, and talked about a massacre happening on the island. Maybe as many as 20-30 kids had been shot, they said. There were about 600 people on the island, and some were swimming for their lives, others were rescued in boats, a lot tried to hide in the woods.

At first there were two different jihadist groups who claimed responsibility for what had happened. My friend and I had problems believing this. Jihadists targeting AUF, youth politicians? It didn't make sense for a second. What later turned out to have happened was that an ethnically Norwegian man, with blond hair and blue eyes and the whole Norwegian package, stood behind everything. First he drove the car bomb into town, then he went to Utøya dressed as a police man, with an automatic rifle. When he came to the island he said that he had important messages to give in regards to the bomb in Oslo, and asked the kids to gather around him. Then he started shooting people.

AUF had hired a police man in plain clothing as security. His son was with him, so he threw him behind a rock to protect him, and then tried to stop the murder. He was shot dead, but his son survived. All together 69 people were killed on the island, mostly teenagers, the youngest ones 14 years old. Many are still badly hurt, some will have permanent physical injuries, and many will be psychologically traumatized. 8 people died in the explosion in Oslo.

When the news first broke about Utøya, I went on Facebook to see what people wrote. Hoping that no one I knew was at the island. Two friends of mine had younger siblings there, but they fortunately came home safe. Then I saw the status update of Håvard, who I had studied economics with. He said "We're alive and hiding." And that's the last thing we heard from him. 21 years old. I didn't know Håvard well, just through the studies and a student trip to Vietnam. But he was a very nice guy, passionate about everything he talked about, socially inclusive, very insightful when it came to politics, had a laughter that made you want to smile as well.

My first impression of him I got when he walked around in a blue t-shirt encouraging people to vote at the church elections in 2009, meaning the elected boards of the parishes. I later found out that he was openly gay, and wanted a church that had room for everyone. A very noble cause that takes a lot of courage and patience to fight for. He was the leader of Oslo AUF, and he thought inclusion of all groups in society was very important. He for instance wanted religious signs such as hijabs to be legal to wear if you're a judge in court, to prevent exclusion of ethnic minorities in our legal system.

To be honest, I haven't wanted to read so much about the killer. I don't even want to write his name here, it's all over the internet anyway. But he is a 32 year old guy from more or less the same part of Oslo as I am, raised in a seemingly normal family and social setting. As far as I've understood he is deeply Christian, and his political stand is extreme right. He was against the multicultural society (very hostile towards Islam), and wanted to punish the biggest ruling political party for making Norway into one. By going after the youth party, he also wanted to kill tomorrow's young leaders. The most tolerant and open minded of them all, people like Håvard.

There was recently an article about Håvard in the paper, where his friends told how brave he had been during the shooting. First he had gone in to a building to warn a group of people that there was a killer outside. Then a girl jumped out of the window and broken her ankle, and he carried her to some bushes where she could safely hide. He then found another group of people who were scared and hiding, and he held them and comforted them and calmed them down. Then he left them, and lost his life. No one can expect people to react rationally and selflessly to such dramatic events, and I hope the people who survived won't feel like they did something wrong by prioritizing saving their own lives. But it also makes me tear up to think about Håvard's actions, that he saved a girl's life even though he must have been terrified himself. I hope this can be a small consolation for his family, in the middle of all the grief.

Global issues vs. cake

Well, it certainly is nice to have a job again. After the Let’s do it-project finished, I was unemployed for a little while. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t pretty. I lost all sense of purpose, spent my days in the local restaurant, drank so many cappuccinos and passion fruit shakes that they refused to serve me any more. I hit on all the waitresses and the chef, before they threw me out on the street. No, not really! I just spent more time on Facebook and watching Masterchef Australia, an excellent show. Appeals both to your heart and your palate, and I’m actually serious now, it’s a remarkable program. Got me through the rough patch.


While taking my morning shower the other day, I met a lizard. First I thought it was dead, then it started to crawl around in the water. I will admit that I was startled, I had to splash water on it with my foot to keep it from charging right at me. I though we had a deal, Mother Nature, no creepy animals before 9 a.m! I’m just not mentally ready before breakfast and a cup of coffee. And in the shower! Maybe it was cleaning up to go on a date with the cute lizard in my kitchen. Share a breadcrumb on the counter, have a romantic crawl up the fridge, enjoy the view?

Afterwards I sat at my local café, eating a piece of cake and thinking about the lizard encounter. I was sitting alone, and a conversation to my right caught my attention. Three white ladies were using big words and dramatic hand gestures, talking about social problems in rural Cambodia. “The poor thing”, they said, “of course that will mess you up”, “that is so heart breaking”, I just got bits and pieces of their conversation. “You know what the real problem is?”, one of them said in a pensive way. They looked up at her, and I paid attention. Yes, what is the real problem? “They just don’t fear God”, she said sadly. I watched the other ladies, wondering how they would respond. Laugh? Get upset? Poke her with a fork? “Yes, you’re right” they said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Wow”, I just had to think. There are four pink people in this room. Three of them are conjuring up ridiculous conclusions to world problems, over their after noon lattes. And the fourth one is too busy eating carrot cake and combatting tiny reptiles to deal with the real issues at hand. This isn’t helping, people! The folks in rural Cambodia have many problems, but fearing the man in the sky with the long beard is not one of them. (Growing a beard could be one of their concerns, at least for the guys. Not a lot of facial hair.)

Some people finds these big subjects so complex and difficult that they feel overwhelmed, they're not even sure how they should approach them or where they should start. Well I know exactly where: Global issues, global problems, it takes so long to say. I would like to launch two new terms for this, and I hope they will catch on: 

glissues

and

globroblems

Glo-bal-iss-ues is four syllables, while gliss-ues is only two. (Even one if you say it really quickly, GLISSUES! Make sure you don't spit.) That is 50 % more efficient than its predecessor. Globroblems sounds a bit like an ethnic group in a Harry Potter book, but that just gives the term some extra charm.

I will follow up on my efficiency thought there, and address the matter of speech in general. What if, during big meetings and conferences where development is being discussed, everyone spoke 50 % more quickly? We would have 50 % more time to discuss the glissues, and a 50 % increase of solutions to them. The topic of development would get a huge competitive advantage to snail speed subjects like business, sports, entertainment... Eat our dust, suckers!

One problem with this is of course that people from non-English speaking countries often speak English more slowly than others. So my question is: Do they really have to be there? Many countries have English as their first language, England, USA, Canada, Australia... And Singaporians speak great English, so Asia is covered! Maybe the lingually impaired countries can pay a foreigner to speak quickly for them? Rent-A-Brit. If they were short of cash, I'm sure the richer countries could lend them the money. Because poverty is globroblematic, and it concerns us all.

Well this is enough development work for one day, I'm exhausted. In stead I will tell you about something that happened to me. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a very strange coincident. In my plastic jar of multivitamins, there was exactly as many vitamin pills left, as I had days left in Cambodia. What are the odds!? (Yes, I counted my multivitamins for fun. Don’t judge me, I was unemployed.) These little things in life…moments you will remember. I was sitting on my unmade bed in Phnom Penh, without a job and without a clear idea of what the future held for me. But I had a few dollars in my pocket, the exact number of multivitamins that I needed, and I was happy.

I snapped this sunset with my phone the other day. I will miss my street!

Travel advice

Now that I have 2 weeks left in this wonderful country, it struck me that I should write a list of tips that I wish someone could have given me. So here it is! This will be interesting to read if you're coming here, and maybe not so interesting if you're not coming here :)

My Incredibly Intelligent List of Cambodia Travel Tips:

Packing

Most things you can get in Cambodia! So don’t worry about leaving clothes behind.

If you have some books in English that you don’t need, you should bring them to Cambodia. Many people want to learn English, and orphanages often want books for the kids there.

Bring 25 USD and a photo for when you’re buying the visa you need. (If you don’t have a photo, you can pay them a few dollars to scan your passport in stead.)

Visa

If you buy a visa upon arrival at the airport, you can only get it for 1 month. Tourist visa is 20 dollars, business visa is 25 dollars.

If your visa expires, you pay a fine of 5 dollars for every day it’s overdue. There are travel agents everywhere who can extend your visa for you, but sometimes mistakes can occur. Check that you get the right visa with correct dates, and get a receipt.

You can extend your visa to 1, 3 or 6 months. The 6 month one is a multiple entry visa, for the other types you must buy a new visa if you return to Cambodia after a trip abroad.

Note: If you extend your tourist visa with a new tourist visa, you have to leave the country and then come back after the two months have expired, to get a third visa.

Getting around

There is no convenient public transportation in Phnom Penh, so unless you get your own bike, you can take a moto taxi (a guy on a motorbike) or a tuk-tuk. Remember to arrange a price before you go, and it’s always good to have the exact amount of money ready.

Bring - a - map! You will be lost without a map. Sometimes streets with consecutive numbers will be next to each other, sometimes they will be on the opposite sides of town. Sometimes your driver will know the address you're going to, sometimes he won't have a clue.

The numbers of the houses on the street can also be pretty random, house number 7 can come after house number 36, and most of the time there's no sign that says which number it is. The best way to find a place is to know the street, and know which street crosses it where you're going. For instance: St. 51 by the corner of st. 63. To have the phone number to the place is also good.

Health

My Norwegian doctor told me that there was risk of getting malaria in all of Cambodia except for in Phnom Penh. But both locals and expats who live here, say that the risk of getting malaria in cities like for instance Siem Reap, is extremely low. When it comes to the more remote areas, you should talk to someone who lives there about the risk, and decide whether or not you should take anti-malaria drugs. I have met very few people here who take them over long periods of time, they can be rough on your body.

My doctor also scared me with stories about dengue fever, which you can get anywhere from the daytime mosquito. I hardly ever get mosquito bites during the daytime here, and the people who live here don't consider dengue to be a very dangerous illness for adults. You can feel really bad for maybe two weeks, and you should go to a doctor, but it's no crisis.

It’s fine to brush your teeth in the tap water, but you shouldn’t drink it. You can get a water company to deliver 20-liter water tanks to your apartment, it’s cheaper and better for the environment than buying hundreds of water bottles. Plastic bottles and bags is the biggest trash problem in Cambodia!

There are many counterfeit medicines and drugs in Cambodia. If you need to buy medicines at a pharmacy, U-Care is the best one.

If you need to go to the hospital, the Royal Rattanak Hospital is the best one in Phnom Penh. The best clinic is the SOS Clinic, which is open 24/7.

Social behavior and etiquette

It’s not common for Cambodian women to show a lot of skin, foreign girls should be aware of this. It is not seen as impolite to wear a short dress or low neckline in public, but you might attract a lot of attention.

Cambodians often speak English well. But if you say something they don’t get, they won’t always admit that they don’t understand you. So if you’re arranging something important, like a high price or certain dates or times, you should make sure you understand each other. It can be useful to write things down for them.

If Cambodians are embarrassed they will often smile or laugh, this doesn’t mean that they’re making fun of you.

Don't touch people’s heads or point your feet at anyone, especially people that are older than you. Touching people on the head is a common sign of affection in many western cultures, but in Cambodia this is a holy part of the body. (But if you know the person well, they probably won't be offended.)

Always take your shoes off when you enter somebody's home or a temple.

It is not considered as rude to ask people about age, income, if you're married or not, if you have kids... So be prepared! :)

There are many monks in orange clothing in the streets. It's considered rude to take photos of them without asking (as it is with other people too). They will often be happy to take a photo with you, but especially women should not put an arm around them in a friendly way, monks shouldn't have any physical contact with the opposite gender.

June

I got sick not so long ago, and I was of course sure that it was something serious. After my fever passed 40 degrees, I went to the doctor. I took off my shirt, and she looked at me and listened to me and pinched me a little. I was lying there nervous for what she would say. Was it dengue fever? Malaria? Something even worse? “I think you have chicken pox!” she said. “Excuse me?” I asked, trying to sound cool and collected (which isn’t easy when you’re lying on a hospital bed in your bra). I explained to her that I was 100 % sure I had it when I was a child, so she just gave me some paracetamol. That evening I got itchy red spots all over my upper body, and I called my mother for a serious chat. She could inform me that I probably never had them when I was little.

What kind of freak child doesn’t get chicken pox! Did I not socialize with the others? I have distinct memories from kindergarten, that I’m sitting surrounded by friends and drinking mud water from a puddle to impress them. That sounds a bit sad now that we’re grown up, but it felt great then, they all thought I was cool. Maybe they were imaginary? That definitely sounds sad. I know I had a boyfriend there, but we rarely got very close (he had cooties after all). After a few days, the red spots disappeared without having had any of the characteristics of chicken pox, so it probably wasn’t that after all. My friends now call the incident my “dengue pox”, which totally isn’t funny. I didn't exaggerate, it could have been super serious!

I'm sure glad I'm not in kindergarten anymore, where I had to drink from puddles to get friends. The friends I have now just make me eat crickets and silk worms in stead.

Fried insects! Disgusting! But surprisingly fun as well, when you're in a dodgy beer garden with friends.

An interesting fact about the word cooties, is that it’s probably derived from the Malay word kutu, which is a parasitic, biting insect. Creative! In Norwegian the kids just call it jentelus and guttelus, girl lice and boy lice. So now you know how to impress the opposite gender in Norwegian, you’re welcome.


The rainy season has come to Phnom Penh, and the bad weather comes in quickly. This was my view yesterday:

Run for cover! Watch out for the lightning! Not that street, it's flooded! Yes, that one too!

A while back I went back to Boeung Chhouk to visit SCAO. It was strange returning there from my modern apartment in Phnom Penh.

The clothes come in all colours, just like the people.

This was the room I stayed in

It was nice falling asleep to the sound of the women speaking together in low voices, it made me feel safe and far away from home at the same time. In the morning we would wake up to the rooster and the cheerful sound of children’s feet on the wooden floor. My first meeting with this country.

When the border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand flared up, the women listened to the radio the whole night. (It struck me that my grandmother probably did this too, when the Nazis occupied Norway during World War 2.) Tens of thousands of people from both countries fled from the villages along the border during the fighting, but started returning after the tension had eased in May. The most important place they’re fighting over, is the Hindu temple Preah Vihear. It is on Cambodian territory, but Thailand believes it should belong to them.


So, where did the time go? When my schedule got tighter at work, the time to blog simply disappeared. But the good news is that the Let’s do it-project was very successful! I’ve had several workshops with Cambodian university students, and it had been a lot of fun! My topic was “Environmental challenges in Cambodia”, and the students were very active in discussing the different problems. April 23rd we had our big clean up day, and 2400 volunteers gathered in a joint effort to clean the streets of Phnom Penh. Very inspiring! Here is a photo of my group, we were in Tuol kork:

Section D, baby! I was very impressed with the commitment and the enthusiasm the volunteers showed, and they came in all ages and with all backgrounds. We had a lot of coverage in the media, even Xinhua in China wrote about us. The project also had it's own song.

Essential Khmer

I’m getting Khmer lessons from a very nice teacher called Vibol. It’s such an interesting and fun language! I was first relieved that it didn’t have tones, like so many other Asian languages (for instance Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai…), but now I don’t know if it’s an advantage. When there are tones you can study them and learn them! But here there are no specific tones, just a distinct melody, and Vibol want’s me to learn it. Right now he thinks that I’m singing the phrases in stead for saying them, and that I’m not a very good singer. Right. He also taught me some important distinctions between common words and bad words that sound similar. For instance:

Som kafé kdao moi – I would like a cup of coffee, please

Som kafé kdo moi – I would like a cup of coffee with penis, please

Jui knom pong! – Help me!

Joi knom pong! – Have sex with me!

Double meaning: Sejt sra – fresh meat / prostitute

Funny stuff. I remember talking to a deaf Norwegian girl about the ambiguities of sign language. She said that for just about every common word in sign language, there is a really dirty one that is similar! I think that’s hilarious, they must have a lot of fun. (Come to think of it, how do deaf Cambodians ever get anything done? Except for making small Cambodians. And drinking penis coffee.) It’s so nice to study a language again, I definitely remember the excitement of starting to learn Chinese. Everything is new and you make a fool out of yourself every time you try to pronounce the difficult sounds.

There's a café on the floor beneath my workplace, so I often come here for a coffee and a break. One of the waiters there always smiles when he sees me and says: "Good evening, Sir!" no matter what time it is. I like reading the newspapers, like The Cambodia Daily (with the motto "All the News Without Fear or Favor") or The Phnom Penh Post. Sad and upsetting stories, as so often in newspapers. But they give these little glimpses of people's lives and destinies that are fascinating sometimes. Here are a few, some of them shortened down:

Body pulled out of Stung Treng pond: A fisherman found a woman dead in a pond in Stung Treng city on Friday. Police concluded that no crime had taken place and that she had died of drowning. Her brother said that she suffered from a mental illness and she frequently wandered out of their home, to the point where he often kept her confined in a room. She had been missing for two days when her body was discovered.

Snake smugglers snared but slither away: 22 kilograms of wild snakes were confiscated by the police in Battambang city on Friday. Police said the snakes were packaged in a box labeled “oranges” that was to be sent to Phnom Penh by bus. Yet when the bus driver was loading the box, he felt something moving inside and filed a complaint to the police. Police discovered the wild snakes and freed them into the jungle, but did not arrest the suspects.

Three charged after raid on brothel: The guesthouse owner was arrested along with 11 male sex workers. The owner was charged with the illegal operation of a business, by providing sexual services to gays and old women in Phnom Penh. The deputy prosecutor adds that all 11 sex workers were being sent for education at the youth rehabilitation centre in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans ans Youth Rehabilitation in Phnom Penh. The director of the municipal Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Office in the Ministry of Interior says: “This is the first time we have found and cracked down on the illegal operation of sexual service providers for gays and old women in Phnom Penh.”

Drunk attempts rape of girl: A 28-year-old man was arrested after he attempted to rape an underage girl in Banteay Meanchey’s Thmar Pouk district on Friday. Police said that the suspect is a friend of the victim’s brother, and the two went to drink together. The suspect asked to sleep at the home of the victim because he was afraid to face his mother while drunk. He then attempted to rape the victim but she shouted for help, and her brother delivered the suspect to police.

River crash claims three lives: Three family members died during a boat crash on the Mekong River in Kandal province Saturday night. The deceased included a father, mother and their 4-year-old daughter. The family’s 6-year-old son survived the crash. After two days, a neighbor found the boy on the river bank and noticed many pieces of a wooden boat floating on the water. The boy told the police that another boat had crashed into his family’s boat while they were fishing.

Such important stories for the people involved, and for me they're a few lines I'm reading while drinking my coffee. Makes you wonder about their lives. In the international section in Cambodia daily the following headline can be found:

Pope Benedict Finds Jews Not to Blame for Death of Jesus

Well that's always good news.

I was looking through my photos the other day, and found this one, from a trip I went on with some other people this September:

We're descending from Gaustatoppen in Norway, and we're pretty much as far away from my current landscape as I could possibly come. I'm the gracious one in the middle there, trying to get down without slipping and breaking my butt.