I'm looking out my office window and at the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Headquarters (yes, our building is literally next door to the headquarters of the armed forces) and someone is urinating on a lone bush in the middle of an open field. I mention this to highlight the massive public urination epidemic plaguing phnom penh.
Perhaps it's because of the rainy season, but i see literally tens of people each day urinating on fences, gates and walls on roadsides, and almost exclusively on the busiest boulevards. Cement walls and iron gates adorn the streets here and every few blocks i'll see a moto parked along the side of the road. Directly in front of the moto is usually a guy spray painting a wall with his amber liquid. Not one of these urinators seems to make any effort to conceal their primordial act of relief. They could simply walk into any restaurant and use the toilet free of charge, and if they really love peeing with they sun on their backs and wind in their hair they could urinate in the semi-privacy of one of the many alleys, but instead they choose to mark their territory in broad day light for everyone to see. I've heard that in NYC, you have to go to court and pay a fine for similar acts, but in Phnom Penh if its not encouraged, it's at least decriminalized.
The american embassy celebrated our nation's b-day in grand style with a thundering fireworks display. Although I was not invited to the private embassay party (my boss was though, and he's canadian!) I caught the fireworks from a moto on the way to a bar. I liked the fireworks, but the problem is that many cambodians ran into the homes to seek shelter when the display began. i guess living in a country entrenched in a 30+ year civil war will have the affect on you. Regardless, I think a big round of applause is in order for the embassy scaring people into thinking phnom penh was under attack (again).
This weekend I'm planning a bicycle trip 150km to the beach. Currently i have neither a bike nor a route nor a weather report, but i'm going anyway. I predict this is gonna go horribly wrong at some point.
5 comments:
you know damn well you can be summoned to court and have to pay a fine for such acts in NYC .. must you always rub my shortcomings in my face
i hope you flip your (non-existent) bikie over and knock out your two front teeth
i love you
just don't get captured by rebells or some shit and be missing or worse during your little escapade to the beach- ok, Thanks!
LOve you
you can use your "residual fitness" to get you there and back.
i was going to make some witty comment about glen and how he should move to cambodes, but i'm glad that he beat me to it all his byself.
Since your blog leaves off on July 8 does that mean something did go horribly wrong on your bike trip? I guess not or I would have heard your mom shrieking from Poughkeepsie all the way here in Chicago. I caught a piece of a story about your gig on NPR this morning. It said they finally indicted a handful of the bad guys who are still alive. The wheels of justice do grind exceedingly slow, but even old men are capable of feeling some pain. Give them a fair trial and then hang them high. I couldn't be prouder of what you got yourself involved in. There are very few noble causes left that haven't been pissed on by someone...whether it's on the streets of pnom pehn or the halls of our own Supreme Court. Since you've been gone, Bush's neo-fascist appointees have tinkled all over Brown v Board of Education and a few other cherished ideals. Between them, Cheney, Gonzales and Scooter Libby's pardon it's really beginning to feel like Nazi Germany circa 1934 here. Everything's done nice and legal and through the courts and the next thing you know there are no courts and its okay to kill Jews or blacks or Cambodians. It will be a miracle if justice anywhere survives this administration. In the interim at least you can say you were involved in one of the last righteous acts. Love you. Look forward to reading about more of your misadventures.
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