Hot season has arrived in Cambodia. For a country that is already warm and humid during most of the year, this is rather bad news. The air these days is coarse, and the sun beats down with such force at midday that it would make you believe perdition was only a few steps away. The canals that once held abundant pools of rainwater are now cracked and dry, and the former green rice fields are yellow. A day’s average temperature is somewhere between 35 and 36 degrees, and the full brunt of the sun can be felt between 11:00 and 1:00 in the afternoon. My house is virtually uninhabitable during the day, for the corrugated steel roof magnifies the intensity of the sun and heats my bedroom to over 37 degrees. In other words, it’s really awful. However, I have come up with a comprehensive list of ways to keep cool.
1. Find a Fan: Worship It and Keep It Happy
I currently have two fans. One is powered by normal electricity, and the other is powered by my car battery + inverter contraption. On nights that I want to use my computer, I sit on the tiled floor of my room and have a fan blow over the two of us. I try to go back and forth between using the two so that I don’t use too much of the family’s electricity. During the day, I go to the school’s office and sit under one of the big ceiling fans there. They are powered by the solar panels on the roof, and I usually try to take a nap under them if I can during the afternoons that I do not have any classes.
2. Wear As Little Clothing As Decency Permits
When I am not at school or elsewhere in the community, I am usually at home. Normal rules of dress do not apply here, and I am free to change into a kromah. When Cambodian men are overheated, it is usually standard procedure for them to wear nothing except this cloth wrapped around their wastes like a towel. The cloth is usually very thin, so it is actually quite comfortable to even sleep with it on. Women can a wear a sarong, but as far as I can tell it is quite undignified for them to lay about in them as much as the men do.
3. Shower Early, Shower Often
I pour cold water over myself at least three to four times daily these days. When you are baked with sweat for hours at a time, it is pretty much the only thing you can do to get any kind of relief. Taking a cold nyuk dtuk and sitting in front of a fan is the closest thing you can get to air conditioning. It is also helpful if you shower right before going to bed, as the relief will relax you enough to fall asleep.
4. Ice
Iced coffee, tea, or Coke can be a lifesaver. Even if you just order a glass of ice, you can fill it with water as many times as you like. The girls who work at the café I usually go to have learned that I like a lot of ice in whatever drink I order that day. They have also commented on several occasions that they have never seen such a person frazzled by the heat. Cambodians seem hot during this season as well, but it does not seem like they get the headaches or stomach cramps that I get. I get the sense that they rather enjoy the heat, and dislike the wind and the rain.
Apologies in Advance
With these methods, I’m hoping that I can survive the Cambodian hot season. Even with these methods in place, I have to say that the onslaught of the heat has left me in a rather languid condition. My computer also seems to heat up rather quickly as well, and I am worried about not using it too much for fear of it dying. The season is affecting my ability to type as much as I have in the previous months. You must forgive me, dear reader, but I’m afraid the output of blog posts during this season will be less than those of the previous two seasons. There will be other posts to come though, as I write all of these notes by hand before I type them here.
All I can do now is just survive.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Learning to Read Again
I cannot quite remember when I first began to read. The process was gradual one, as I can remember lots of spelling mistakes and misuse of words from an early age. Dan Quayle was vice-president then, and this grown man who could not spell simple words was something of a hero to those of us struggling over our notebooks and spelling lists. As I got better at spelling, the fascination passed. Like many of us, I forgot about Quayle when the Democrats were in power in the 1990’s.
I do have one precious memory from the time before I knew how to read. I was over at a friend’s house (I think his name was Thomas Casey) looking for something to watch on the television. Thomas said that he had a tape of “Davey Crockett,” a favorite Disney classic of the both of ours, and the two of us went looking through a pile of tapes for the right one. This would have taken a minimum of effort had we known how to read the labels on the tapes. After inserting about a dozen videotapes into the VCR, Thomas called to his mother for help. Thomas’s mother came over and quickly found the tape for us. She then quipped, “Won’t things be better when you know how to read?” Indeed, Thomas’s mother was right. Things were better then, but now they are much worse.
In Cambodia, I am illiterate. What I mean by this is that I cannot read Khmer script. Most traffic signs, posters for Thai energy drinks and Black Panther beer, and store signs all elude me equally. Lately I have been trying to get around this problem by studying the Khmer script more closely with my tutor. The first step in trying to get around this problem was to get a textbook that would help me learn better. I managed to get a hold of the book that all children use now to study the script, and it is actually incredibly helpful. While its targeted age is under 7 and assumes that its reader already has a profound knowledge of oral Khmer, the book is actually fantastic. It has pictures and cartoons to help you learn about what it is you are studying, and it uses repetition to teach you the Khmer script well enough to read and write basic sentences. This is a great help, because the language itself is already very difficult to learn.
Khmer script has almost 96 letters. These letters are divided into several different groups: 1st series consonants, second series consonants, subscript consonants, vowels, and punctuation marks. While learning the consonants and vowels is not impossible, the difficulty comes when you are trying to spell out a word that you do not know. This is because the sound of the vowel changes depending on what consonant it is used with. Another confusing element in trying to read Khmer is the addition of sub-consonants. These are written below or above the normal consonants in addition to the vowel. However, when this happens you are actually required to read backwards again and then forwards. The whole process has you reading in circles, but thankfully I have not reached that part of the children's book yet.
I will give you an example of what I am learning how to read. At the current moment, I have before me a sentence that is 28 letters in length. It begins with the consonant jo, and the vowel aye is written above it. However, since jo is a second series consonant, aye is now pronounced ee. This is followed by dto and aah, which completes the first word of jee dta (grandfather). The rest of the process is rather tedious, so I will skip to the end and tell you that the whole sentence sounds like Jee dta boo naa dthar som buhr bee kait. This literally translates as, “Grandfather Boo Naa walks sailing ship two months.” With a little tweaking, what this actually means is, “The grandfather of Boo Naa is sailing for two months.” With a little hard work, I’ll be able read more things like this with greater ease.
Slowly, I am beginning to recognize patterns between words. I can the license plates of cars and a few signs, but it is still a slow and tedious process.
I do have one precious memory from the time before I knew how to read. I was over at a friend’s house (I think his name was Thomas Casey) looking for something to watch on the television. Thomas said that he had a tape of “Davey Crockett,” a favorite Disney classic of the both of ours, and the two of us went looking through a pile of tapes for the right one. This would have taken a minimum of effort had we known how to read the labels on the tapes. After inserting about a dozen videotapes into the VCR, Thomas called to his mother for help. Thomas’s mother came over and quickly found the tape for us. She then quipped, “Won’t things be better when you know how to read?” Indeed, Thomas’s mother was right. Things were better then, but now they are much worse.
In Cambodia, I am illiterate. What I mean by this is that I cannot read Khmer script. Most traffic signs, posters for Thai energy drinks and Black Panther beer, and store signs all elude me equally. Lately I have been trying to get around this problem by studying the Khmer script more closely with my tutor. The first step in trying to get around this problem was to get a textbook that would help me learn better. I managed to get a hold of the book that all children use now to study the script, and it is actually incredibly helpful. While its targeted age is under 7 and assumes that its reader already has a profound knowledge of oral Khmer, the book is actually fantastic. It has pictures and cartoons to help you learn about what it is you are studying, and it uses repetition to teach you the Khmer script well enough to read and write basic sentences. This is a great help, because the language itself is already very difficult to learn.
Khmer script has almost 96 letters. These letters are divided into several different groups: 1st series consonants, second series consonants, subscript consonants, vowels, and punctuation marks. While learning the consonants and vowels is not impossible, the difficulty comes when you are trying to spell out a word that you do not know. This is because the sound of the vowel changes depending on what consonant it is used with. Another confusing element in trying to read Khmer is the addition of sub-consonants. These are written below or above the normal consonants in addition to the vowel. However, when this happens you are actually required to read backwards again and then forwards. The whole process has you reading in circles, but thankfully I have not reached that part of the children's book yet.
I will give you an example of what I am learning how to read. At the current moment, I have before me a sentence that is 28 letters in length. It begins with the consonant jo, and the vowel aye is written above it. However, since jo is a second series consonant, aye is now pronounced ee. This is followed by dto and aah, which completes the first word of jee dta (grandfather). The rest of the process is rather tedious, so I will skip to the end and tell you that the whole sentence sounds like Jee dta boo naa dthar som buhr bee kait. This literally translates as, “Grandfather Boo Naa walks sailing ship two months.” With a little tweaking, what this actually means is, “The grandfather of Boo Naa is sailing for two months.” With a little hard work, I’ll be able read more things like this with greater ease.
Slowly, I am beginning to recognize patterns between words. I can the license plates of cars and a few signs, but it is still a slow and tedious process.
Friday, February 13, 2009
En cherchant l’Indochine (In Searching For Indochina)
This is an essay I wrote in French some time during November, but I have been sitting on it for a while. The English translation follows after the original.
Malgré son expérience coloniale sous la France, le Cambodge n’est pas un pays francophone. Ce n’est pas une opinion ; c’est une conclusion fondée sur mes observations et sur les conversations personnelles que j’ai eu pendant les quatre derniers mois. Avant d’arriver en ce pays, j’avais espéré trouver la même influence française qu’on peut trouver en Afrique et en Amérique du Nord. Malheureusement, l’histoire de la région dite « l’Indochine » après la fin de la colonisation française est plus violente, brutale, et longue que celle des autres anciennes colonies de France. Vietnam a fait une guerre de libération aux Français, et une guerre de conquête aux Américains. Cambodge a souffert d’une guerre civile pendant trente années entre les armées de Lon Nol, des Khmer Rouges, et du Vietnam. Pendant le génocide entre 1975 et 1979, les Khmers Rouges ont détruit le système de l’éducation française qui avait été organisé par le roi francophone Sihanouk. Le nouveau régime a exterminé tous les instituteurs, professeurs, et intellectuels, et une personne francophone était considérée pendant cette période comme un ennemi de la classe ouvrière. En conséquence, les survivants ont oublié le Français pour s’échapper à la mort. L’oncle de ma famille d’accueil à Kampong m’a dit pendant le festival de Pchum Ben, « Pendant le génocide de Pol Pot, j’étais un homme ignorant. Si personne me demandait de parler français, je dirais ‘Ah ché’ (je ne peux pas). » C’était la réalité pendant les années de la terreur.
La jeune génération du Cambodge d’aujourd’hui n’a aucune mémoire des Français ni des Khmers Rouges. En général, l’influence de la culture française se dévoile en deux façons. La première est évidente pour le voyageur ordinaire, parce qu’elle est un symbole familier de la cuisine et de la culture française. C’est la baguette. Les Français ont donné la recette pour fabriquer la baguette aux Cambodgiens, et maintenant les Cambodgiens vendent ce pain chaque jour dans le marché de chaque village ordinaire. Ces petits morceaux de pain ne sont pas délicieux comme le pain que jadis j’ai gouté à la boulangérie « Au Vieux Moulin » (14ième arrondissement, rue Daguerre), mais c’est parfois un plaisir de les manger.
L’autre manifestation de l’influence française existe dans le langage Khmer, mais ceci n’est pas évident à prime abord. Le mot barang signifie littéralement « personne française » (par rapport au mot persan « firengi » signifiant « français ») mais de nos jours les Cambodgiens utilise ce mot pour identifier toutes les personnes qui ont le visage blanc. Par exemple, un barang est un Français, un Américain, un Australien, un Allemand, etc. Quand je vais à bicyclette dans le village, les petits-enfants crient « Oooh ! Barang chi cong ! Barang Chi Cong ! » (Il y a un homme français qui va à bicyclette !). Il y a des autres mots français que les Cambodgiens ont adoptés en Khmer (valise, carotte, pain, remorque), mais le mot barang est vraiment un symbole permanant de la présence européen ici.
J’ai l’occasion parfois de rencontrer des personnes francophones, mais ce plaisir est extrêmement rare. La première fois que j’ai rencontré un Cambodgien qui parlait français, je faisais le linge à la main en face de ma maison à Kampong Tralach. Un vieil homme portant un chapeau militaire m’a approché et il m’a demandé si je parlais français. J’ai répondu, « Oui monsieur », et il m’a dit « Oh, j’étais dans la militaire française en 1954. » « Oh… » j’ai dit. Il est parti après l’échange, et j’étais choqué. Mes amis américains qui parlent français m’ont dit que les Cambodgiens francophones sont toujours d’un certain âge, et qu’ils n’ont pas parlé français pendant les trente ans de guerre.
Quand j’ai besoin d’aller à la PTT et de manger un hamburger, je quitte mon petit village et je pars pour la ville de Siem Reap. Selon André Malraux en 1930, « Cette petite ville située dans la province du même nom, se trouve à quelques kilomètres des ruines d’Angkor. » Maintenant la ville n’est plus petite parce que l’industrie de tourisme l’a transformée en centre d’affaires. On peut trouver deux organisations françaises ici : l’Institut Française d’Extrême-Orient, et Le Centre Culturel de Français à Siem Reap. Le centre offre des cours en française, une bibliothèque, et un petit café. La patronne du petit café est une femme Cambodgienne très gentille, qui parle français très bien. Je parle avec elle et avec les autres touristes français quand je prends mon déjeuner là-bas, mais c’est toujours la même conversation.
« Vous allez habiter ici en Cambodge pendant deux ans ? C’est dur, n’est pas? »
« Oui, la vie ici est dure. »
Les conversations en Français à Siem Reap, Kampong, et Phnom Penh ont établi une vérité : Je cherche l’Indochine du passé , mais cette la contribution de France à Cambodge est très subtile. Le Cambodge francophone se trouve dans l’histoire du pays, et il n’est pas dans le présent. Le Maroc de l’Extrême-Orient n’existe pas.
Translation
Despite over a hundred years of French colonial rule, Cambodia is not a francophone country. This is not an opinion; this is a conclusion based on the observations and conversations I have gathered during the last seven months. Despite knowing the sad, recent history of this country, I had hoped to find something resembling the French influence in North Africa and Quebec. Sadly, the history of the region once known as French Indochina has suffered from a much more violent history than most other former colonies of France. This has largely destroyed any lingering presence of colonial influence. Vietnam fought a bloody revolution against the French, and then another war against the Americans. Cambodia suffered over thirty years of war between the armies of Lon Nol, the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, and the present day government. During the years of genocide between 1975 and 1979, the forces of Pol Pot obliterated the educational system that was based on the French model by simply killing anyone who was involved in it. The regime exterminated almost every teacher, professor, or intellectual who was deemed to be an enemy of the peasant class. Those who spoke French quickly forgot that they did simply as a matter of survival. During our training period, the uncle in my host family said to me one day, “During the time of Pol Pot, I was an ignorant man. If anyone asked me if I could speak French, I would say no.” This was the reality during the years of terror.
Today, the younger generations of Cambodia have no memory of the French occupation or the Khmer Rouge. However, the legacy left by the French reveals itself in two ways. The first is an item that is a world famous staple of French cuisine: the baguette. Sometime during the French occupation, the colonial administrators taught the Cambodian people how to bake bread according to their preferred style. Today the baguette is an everyday item sold in markets across Cambodia. The little pieces of bread are not as delicious as those sold in Au Vieux Moulin (14ième arrondissement, rue Daguerre), for I am told that no yeast goes into their production. However, it is still a luxury to eat them over a cup of coffee in the early hours of the morning.
The other hint of the French occupation is more subtle than the first hint, and requires some knowledge of the Khmer language to understand it. In Khmer, the word barang literally means “French person,” but Cambodians use the word to describe any person with a white face. This means that any Australian, German, American, or English person can be classified as “French.” (Incidentally, the Persian word firengi also means French person, and is used in a similar way.) Whenever I bicycle through a small Cambodian village, the little children who see me scream, “Oooh ! Barang chi cong ! Barang Chi Cong !” (“Look! There’s a Frenchman who bicycling! A Bicycling Frenchman!”) There are other French words that the Khmer language has borrowed, but the word barang could be considered a permanent symbol of the French colonial presence here.
Meeting people, either Cambodians or foreigners, who speak French in this country is an extremely rare pleasure. The first time I met a Cambodian who spoke French, I was living in Kampong during our training period. I was doing my laundry in front of my host family’s house when an old, hobbling man in a military jacket approached me. He asked my host sister who this foreigner was before turning to me and asking, “Parlez-vous français monsieur?” I said that yes, I did speak French. “Oh,” he said, “I was in the French army in 1954.” With this, he continued walking down the road. Despite the brevity of this exchange, I was very surprised to talk to a man such as this. I wanted to continue talking to him, but I could see that he had hard time remembering what French he knew. Most Cambodians who still speak French are usually of a certain age, and they often have a hard time speaking it because it has been over thirty years since they have had the opportunity to use it.
When I want to visit the post office and eat a few dozen hamburgers, I leave my little village and head to the town of Siem Reap. According to the French author André Malroux, who traveled here in 1930, “this little town, situated in the province of the same name, is found some kilometers from the ruins of Angkor Wat.” Today, the town is no longer little. Rather, it has exploded into a hub of western civilization because of the tourist industry. Among the gigantic hotels and crowds of Korean tourists, two French institutions can be found here: The French Cultural Center , and the French Institute of the Extreme-Orient. The former is housed in a white building near the Siem Reap river, and offers French classes, a library, and a little restaurant aptly named, “Le Café.” The little Cambodian woman who runs it is very friendly, speaks French, and will encourage you to eat as many tartes citron as you can. Occasionally I speak with her and the French tourists who come there, but the conversation is always the same.
“Life in Cambodia is hard, is it not?”
“Yes, it is very hard.”
While I have looked here and in other parts of the country for the French Indochina of the past, the French colonial influence on this part of the world is very subtle. Francophone Cambodia is a truly a state of the past, not of the present, and the “Morocco of the Extreme-Orient” does not exist. This is perhaps for the best, for the Cambodian people already have a rich and ancient cultural heritage to draw on. I plan to visit Vietnam and Laos sometime, and I will be curious to see if I can find any French influence there as well.
Malgré son expérience coloniale sous la France, le Cambodge n’est pas un pays francophone. Ce n’est pas une opinion ; c’est une conclusion fondée sur mes observations et sur les conversations personnelles que j’ai eu pendant les quatre derniers mois. Avant d’arriver en ce pays, j’avais espéré trouver la même influence française qu’on peut trouver en Afrique et en Amérique du Nord. Malheureusement, l’histoire de la région dite « l’Indochine » après la fin de la colonisation française est plus violente, brutale, et longue que celle des autres anciennes colonies de France. Vietnam a fait une guerre de libération aux Français, et une guerre de conquête aux Américains. Cambodge a souffert d’une guerre civile pendant trente années entre les armées de Lon Nol, des Khmer Rouges, et du Vietnam. Pendant le génocide entre 1975 et 1979, les Khmers Rouges ont détruit le système de l’éducation française qui avait été organisé par le roi francophone Sihanouk. Le nouveau régime a exterminé tous les instituteurs, professeurs, et intellectuels, et une personne francophone était considérée pendant cette période comme un ennemi de la classe ouvrière. En conséquence, les survivants ont oublié le Français pour s’échapper à la mort. L’oncle de ma famille d’accueil à Kampong m’a dit pendant le festival de Pchum Ben, « Pendant le génocide de Pol Pot, j’étais un homme ignorant. Si personne me demandait de parler français, je dirais ‘Ah ché’ (je ne peux pas). » C’était la réalité pendant les années de la terreur.
La jeune génération du Cambodge d’aujourd’hui n’a aucune mémoire des Français ni des Khmers Rouges. En général, l’influence de la culture française se dévoile en deux façons. La première est évidente pour le voyageur ordinaire, parce qu’elle est un symbole familier de la cuisine et de la culture française. C’est la baguette. Les Français ont donné la recette pour fabriquer la baguette aux Cambodgiens, et maintenant les Cambodgiens vendent ce pain chaque jour dans le marché de chaque village ordinaire. Ces petits morceaux de pain ne sont pas délicieux comme le pain que jadis j’ai gouté à la boulangérie « Au Vieux Moulin » (14ième arrondissement, rue Daguerre), mais c’est parfois un plaisir de les manger.
L’autre manifestation de l’influence française existe dans le langage Khmer, mais ceci n’est pas évident à prime abord. Le mot barang signifie littéralement « personne française » (par rapport au mot persan « firengi » signifiant « français ») mais de nos jours les Cambodgiens utilise ce mot pour identifier toutes les personnes qui ont le visage blanc. Par exemple, un barang est un Français, un Américain, un Australien, un Allemand, etc. Quand je vais à bicyclette dans le village, les petits-enfants crient « Oooh ! Barang chi cong ! Barang Chi Cong ! » (Il y a un homme français qui va à bicyclette !). Il y a des autres mots français que les Cambodgiens ont adoptés en Khmer (valise, carotte, pain, remorque), mais le mot barang est vraiment un symbole permanant de la présence européen ici.
J’ai l’occasion parfois de rencontrer des personnes francophones, mais ce plaisir est extrêmement rare. La première fois que j’ai rencontré un Cambodgien qui parlait français, je faisais le linge à la main en face de ma maison à Kampong Tralach. Un vieil homme portant un chapeau militaire m’a approché et il m’a demandé si je parlais français. J’ai répondu, « Oui monsieur », et il m’a dit « Oh, j’étais dans la militaire française en 1954. » « Oh… » j’ai dit. Il est parti après l’échange, et j’étais choqué. Mes amis américains qui parlent français m’ont dit que les Cambodgiens francophones sont toujours d’un certain âge, et qu’ils n’ont pas parlé français pendant les trente ans de guerre.
Quand j’ai besoin d’aller à la PTT et de manger un hamburger, je quitte mon petit village et je pars pour la ville de Siem Reap. Selon André Malraux en 1930, « Cette petite ville située dans la province du même nom, se trouve à quelques kilomètres des ruines d’Angkor. » Maintenant la ville n’est plus petite parce que l’industrie de tourisme l’a transformée en centre d’affaires. On peut trouver deux organisations françaises ici : l’Institut Française d’Extrême-Orient, et Le Centre Culturel de Français à Siem Reap. Le centre offre des cours en française, une bibliothèque, et un petit café. La patronne du petit café est une femme Cambodgienne très gentille, qui parle français très bien. Je parle avec elle et avec les autres touristes français quand je prends mon déjeuner là-bas, mais c’est toujours la même conversation.
« Vous allez habiter ici en Cambodge pendant deux ans ? C’est dur, n’est pas? »
« Oui, la vie ici est dure. »
Les conversations en Français à Siem Reap, Kampong, et Phnom Penh ont établi une vérité : Je cherche l’Indochine du passé , mais cette la contribution de France à Cambodge est très subtile. Le Cambodge francophone se trouve dans l’histoire du pays, et il n’est pas dans le présent. Le Maroc de l’Extrême-Orient n’existe pas.
Translation
Despite over a hundred years of French colonial rule, Cambodia is not a francophone country. This is not an opinion; this is a conclusion based on the observations and conversations I have gathered during the last seven months. Despite knowing the sad, recent history of this country, I had hoped to find something resembling the French influence in North Africa and Quebec. Sadly, the history of the region once known as French Indochina has suffered from a much more violent history than most other former colonies of France. This has largely destroyed any lingering presence of colonial influence. Vietnam fought a bloody revolution against the French, and then another war against the Americans. Cambodia suffered over thirty years of war between the armies of Lon Nol, the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, and the present day government. During the years of genocide between 1975 and 1979, the forces of Pol Pot obliterated the educational system that was based on the French model by simply killing anyone who was involved in it. The regime exterminated almost every teacher, professor, or intellectual who was deemed to be an enemy of the peasant class. Those who spoke French quickly forgot that they did simply as a matter of survival. During our training period, the uncle in my host family said to me one day, “During the time of Pol Pot, I was an ignorant man. If anyone asked me if I could speak French, I would say no.” This was the reality during the years of terror.
Today, the younger generations of Cambodia have no memory of the French occupation or the Khmer Rouge. However, the legacy left by the French reveals itself in two ways. The first is an item that is a world famous staple of French cuisine: the baguette. Sometime during the French occupation, the colonial administrators taught the Cambodian people how to bake bread according to their preferred style. Today the baguette is an everyday item sold in markets across Cambodia. The little pieces of bread are not as delicious as those sold in Au Vieux Moulin (14ième arrondissement, rue Daguerre), for I am told that no yeast goes into their production. However, it is still a luxury to eat them over a cup of coffee in the early hours of the morning.
The other hint of the French occupation is more subtle than the first hint, and requires some knowledge of the Khmer language to understand it. In Khmer, the word barang literally means “French person,” but Cambodians use the word to describe any person with a white face. This means that any Australian, German, American, or English person can be classified as “French.” (Incidentally, the Persian word firengi also means French person, and is used in a similar way.) Whenever I bicycle through a small Cambodian village, the little children who see me scream, “Oooh ! Barang chi cong ! Barang Chi Cong !” (“Look! There’s a Frenchman who bicycling! A Bicycling Frenchman!”) There are other French words that the Khmer language has borrowed, but the word barang could be considered a permanent symbol of the French colonial presence here.
Meeting people, either Cambodians or foreigners, who speak French in this country is an extremely rare pleasure. The first time I met a Cambodian who spoke French, I was living in Kampong during our training period. I was doing my laundry in front of my host family’s house when an old, hobbling man in a military jacket approached me. He asked my host sister who this foreigner was before turning to me and asking, “Parlez-vous français monsieur?” I said that yes, I did speak French. “Oh,” he said, “I was in the French army in 1954.” With this, he continued walking down the road. Despite the brevity of this exchange, I was very surprised to talk to a man such as this. I wanted to continue talking to him, but I could see that he had hard time remembering what French he knew. Most Cambodians who still speak French are usually of a certain age, and they often have a hard time speaking it because it has been over thirty years since they have had the opportunity to use it.
When I want to visit the post office and eat a few dozen hamburgers, I leave my little village and head to the town of Siem Reap. According to the French author André Malroux, who traveled here in 1930, “this little town, situated in the province of the same name, is found some kilometers from the ruins of Angkor Wat.” Today, the town is no longer little. Rather, it has exploded into a hub of western civilization because of the tourist industry. Among the gigantic hotels and crowds of Korean tourists, two French institutions can be found here: The French Cultural Center , and the French Institute of the Extreme-Orient. The former is housed in a white building near the Siem Reap river, and offers French classes, a library, and a little restaurant aptly named, “Le Café.” The little Cambodian woman who runs it is very friendly, speaks French, and will encourage you to eat as many tartes citron as you can. Occasionally I speak with her and the French tourists who come there, but the conversation is always the same.
“Life in Cambodia is hard, is it not?”
“Yes, it is very hard.”
While I have looked here and in other parts of the country for the French Indochina of the past, the French colonial influence on this part of the world is very subtle. Francophone Cambodia is a truly a state of the past, not of the present, and the “Morocco of the Extreme-Orient” does not exist. This is perhaps for the best, for the Cambodian people already have a rich and ancient cultural heritage to draw on. I plan to visit Vietnam and Laos sometime, and I will be curious to see if I can find any French influence there as well.
The Lost Temple
After a few months of being in Anchor, I discovered that there is an ancient temple some 9 kilometers away from where I live. It's not Angkor Wat, but it is something to see. The locals say that this area was part of an ancient highway system that reached all the way into Thailand. They also say that some valuable statues were part of the original site, but that they were looted by the Khmer Rouge.
Mosquito Trap Reviewed
I wrote this article for Mango Dreams, our volunteer newsletter, so I thought that I would reprint it here.
Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, the mosquito has to be the least popular. It is easy to understand how this is so, for various kinds of irritation and disease follow the little vampires wherever they go. As many of us know, their bite can be the cause of several scary diseases found in this part of world. I myself suffered from a bout of Dengue Fever last December, which has made me much more paranoid about being bitten. For many nights, I lay awake inside my mosquito net thinking about how I could reduce the mosquito population in my room. “Surely,” I thought to myself, “there has to be a way of building a device that would trap the vile devils. A veritable mosquito trap, if you will.” While trying to design such a thing myself, I sought advice from a phrase said by an old religion professor of mine during my days at university. In response to a very difficult question posed to him student, he said to us, “There are many questions about the universe that are very difficult to answer. The only course of action is to ask God. But you can always do the next best thing; you can ask Google™.” I asked the search engine giant for advice about how to build a mosquito trap, and sure enough I found what I was looking for.
There are essentially two kinds of mosquito traps. The first is the kind that you have to buy, and the second is the kind you can make at home. What is similar about both kinds is that they operate using the same basic principle. Mosquitoes are attracted to heat, carbon dioxide, stagnant water, and darkness; the first two for when the mosquito needs to feed, and the second two for them to hide and reproduce. When a human or animal is nearby, a mosquito can locate its position by the carbon dioxide and the heat it emits. The perfect distraction for them would be for you to take a giant water buffalo and put it in your room so that the mosquitoes would bite the buffalo and not you. However, since a water buffalo is not known to be most gracious of houseguests, you can recreate the conditions that would attract the mosquitoes to the buffalo. There are several companies that sell industrial mosquito traps that do just that sort of thing. Most emit low levels of carbon dioxide, emit heat, and emit a chemical that mimics the smell of breath that mosquitoes can detect. The mosquitoes then fly near the emitters, and are sucked into a space where they die. While these machines are mostly very expensive, there is a contraption you can build that more or less does the same thing for a fraction of what the commercial variety costs.
I found the instructions for this trap on a website named http://www.diyhappy.com/quick-and-dirty-mosquito-trap/ . It said that the idea originated from a class science project in Taiwan. The materials you need to build this trap are as follows: an empty two-liter bottle of soda, scissors, black paper, tape, sugar, water, and yeast. All of the items are things you should be able to find in your local markets except for the yeast, which can be found at Lucky Market™ for fewer than three dollars. This is how you build the trap:
1. Cut off the top of the bottle above the wrapper so that you have two pieces: a jar-like piece, and a funnel like piece.
2. Next, add 200ml of water to bottle (about a fifth of the bottle).
3. Add 50 grams of sugar (about two spoonfuls of sugar) to the water, and stir it so that it dissolves.
4. Add 1 gram of yeast, about a half of spoonful, to the mixture. CO2 will be produced when the yeast mixes with the sugar and ferments. This will make it smell like a beer, but the odor is not very strong.
5. Take the funnel part of the bottle that you cut up and fit into the bottle with the top facing down. Seal the edges with tape so that the CO2 is only released through the downward facing top of the bottle.
6. Either wrap the bottle in black paper, or put it in a dark place. The mosquitoes will be attracted to the carbon dioxide and the darkness, and will be trapped inside the bottle. They cannot escape because once they go in, they cannot find their way out. They are just that smart.
Give the trap a few days before it really starts working. I noticed that it was much more effective if I put it inside a bag or any place where I was always killing mosquitoes with my electrified tennis racket. Also, darker places will catch more mosquitoes than those with more light.
Making these traps can also be a fun activity you can do with your students. I told my classes that if they brought an empty plastic water bottle to the special class in the afternoon, I would provide water, sugar, and yeast. We discussed the dangers of Dengue and Malaria as well as general mosquito control techniques before we made the traps as a fun kind of activity.
Try it out for yourselves, but just remember that this is not a cure-all for preventing mosquito bites. Bug spray, protective clothing, and nets still need to be used, but consider this as another weapon in your arsenal against mosquitoes. Fortunately, most of us will hopefully not share the sentiment left by one person on the message board of the website where I found this: “If only I knew about this when I was in the Peace Corps. I wouldn’t have lost so much blood…”
Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, the mosquito has to be the least popular. It is easy to understand how this is so, for various kinds of irritation and disease follow the little vampires wherever they go. As many of us know, their bite can be the cause of several scary diseases found in this part of world. I myself suffered from a bout of Dengue Fever last December, which has made me much more paranoid about being bitten. For many nights, I lay awake inside my mosquito net thinking about how I could reduce the mosquito population in my room. “Surely,” I thought to myself, “there has to be a way of building a device that would trap the vile devils. A veritable mosquito trap, if you will.” While trying to design such a thing myself, I sought advice from a phrase said by an old religion professor of mine during my days at university. In response to a very difficult question posed to him student, he said to us, “There are many questions about the universe that are very difficult to answer. The only course of action is to ask God. But you can always do the next best thing; you can ask Google™.” I asked the search engine giant for advice about how to build a mosquito trap, and sure enough I found what I was looking for.
There are essentially two kinds of mosquito traps. The first is the kind that you have to buy, and the second is the kind you can make at home. What is similar about both kinds is that they operate using the same basic principle. Mosquitoes are attracted to heat, carbon dioxide, stagnant water, and darkness; the first two for when the mosquito needs to feed, and the second two for them to hide and reproduce. When a human or animal is nearby, a mosquito can locate its position by the carbon dioxide and the heat it emits. The perfect distraction for them would be for you to take a giant water buffalo and put it in your room so that the mosquitoes would bite the buffalo and not you. However, since a water buffalo is not known to be most gracious of houseguests, you can recreate the conditions that would attract the mosquitoes to the buffalo. There are several companies that sell industrial mosquito traps that do just that sort of thing. Most emit low levels of carbon dioxide, emit heat, and emit a chemical that mimics the smell of breath that mosquitoes can detect. The mosquitoes then fly near the emitters, and are sucked into a space where they die. While these machines are mostly very expensive, there is a contraption you can build that more or less does the same thing for a fraction of what the commercial variety costs.
I found the instructions for this trap on a website named http://www.diyhappy.com/quick-and-dirty-mosquito-trap/ . It said that the idea originated from a class science project in Taiwan. The materials you need to build this trap are as follows: an empty two-liter bottle of soda, scissors, black paper, tape, sugar, water, and yeast. All of the items are things you should be able to find in your local markets except for the yeast, which can be found at Lucky Market™ for fewer than three dollars. This is how you build the trap:
1. Cut off the top of the bottle above the wrapper so that you have two pieces: a jar-like piece, and a funnel like piece.
2. Next, add 200ml of water to bottle (about a fifth of the bottle).
3. Add 50 grams of sugar (about two spoonfuls of sugar) to the water, and stir it so that it dissolves.
4. Add 1 gram of yeast, about a half of spoonful, to the mixture. CO2 will be produced when the yeast mixes with the sugar and ferments. This will make it smell like a beer, but the odor is not very strong.
5. Take the funnel part of the bottle that you cut up and fit into the bottle with the top facing down. Seal the edges with tape so that the CO2 is only released through the downward facing top of the bottle.
6. Either wrap the bottle in black paper, or put it in a dark place. The mosquitoes will be attracted to the carbon dioxide and the darkness, and will be trapped inside the bottle. They cannot escape because once they go in, they cannot find their way out. They are just that smart.
Give the trap a few days before it really starts working. I noticed that it was much more effective if I put it inside a bag or any place where I was always killing mosquitoes with my electrified tennis racket. Also, darker places will catch more mosquitoes than those with more light.
Making these traps can also be a fun activity you can do with your students. I told my classes that if they brought an empty plastic water bottle to the special class in the afternoon, I would provide water, sugar, and yeast. We discussed the dangers of Dengue and Malaria as well as general mosquito control techniques before we made the traps as a fun kind of activity.
Try it out for yourselves, but just remember that this is not a cure-all for preventing mosquito bites. Bug spray, protective clothing, and nets still need to be used, but consider this as another weapon in your arsenal against mosquitoes. Fortunately, most of us will hopefully not share the sentiment left by one person on the message board of the website where I found this: “If only I knew about this when I was in the Peace Corps. I wouldn’t have lost so much blood…”
Friday, January 23, 2009
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