Have you ever been there when durian fruit was cut open? Did you faint? Or did you salivate immediately hoping for a taste of the scrumptious fruit? Or maybe you ran out of the room? All these reactions are to be expected. This infamous fruit is omnipresent throughout southeast Asia. When the fruit is cut open the stench can be best compared to human vomit. It permeates everything nearby. It's so strong that the practice in Phnom Penh upscale hotels is to forbid it entirely. At the same time the fruit in pods esconced inside the hull is sweet, scrumptious and nearly sinful. In fact, durian can be the best metaphor for Christian sin here. The spikes on the skin should warn any thinking soul, but the temptation of the sticky, sweet fruit entices even the most thoughtful. And then the stench should further warn, but NO, fanatics must wade on to grasp the sticky pods in their own hands and down them despite ruining their clothes with the juicy odor.

If you were riding a bike in the streets of Phnom Penh and you saw this wouldn't you do anything you could to get a shot of it? Damn the SUV that you've stopped on a dime by riding in front of it. Damn the parking blocks where your tires wedge. Damn the dropped iPhone. Stop this woman let me take a picture of her offering, hudnreds of wild sparrows for sale to any taker.

Another of my responsiblities at Deaf Development Program is to train two HIV prevention outreach workers. They are two vivacious, outgoing-for Deaf Cambodian women. They have been training with an older hearing instructor who really hasn't gotten the idea when it comes to working with people whose primary communication is visual.

Sopheap helps out at my apartment with cleaning and straightening stuff up. She comes once a week with her hearing boyfriend.

In her role as an HIV outreach worker, she has a quick grasp of otherwise very complicated metaphors and examples we need to use to each Deaf young people 1) What HIV is; 2) Who gets HIV; 3) How to prevent HIV transmission; 4) How to get the HIV test; and 5) what to do if the test turns positive.

Though Sopheap was orphaned at an early age, she has an outgoing personality and a thirst for learning that with with the encouragement of her foster family have really given her a wide outlook on the world and a willingness to look outside of herself for information. Her friend Sreytouch on the other hand has a Deaf identical twin sister and a second younger sister who is deaf. Her advantage of having grown up in what could have been a language rich family is somewhat tempered by her shy personality and her lack of world experience. The discussions they are going to lead have the five components and three object lessons. They were specifically design to be easy to understand no matter how much language exposure you have attained. My housemate, Tashi will continue to train them as I leave tomorrow for Hawaii. The two of them are one of the things I will miss about Phnom Penh while I return home.

I got up "very early" one morning (at 5:30 I was out the door) to see what I could in my neighborhood at that hour. Down toward the riverside what did I see? A crowd of 50 year olds and senior citizens doing their morning aerobics. I had heard that there was a morning falung dan activity at the Olympic Stadium about three miles from my house. But I never knew that these folks worked out to Khmer pop music every morning at six directly in front of the Royal Palace (to the right and out of the picture) and next to the Royal reviewing stand for the annual Water Festival on the river. Most of these folks are Vietnamese and Chinese seniors and some of them don't just dance to pop music, but also practice chi gong for health.

Back towards my house I turned the corner and ran into Mit Samlanh (Street Friends) the school for street kids whose playground and assembly yard is directly beneath my bedroom window. They provide schooling and job training for kids who otherwise are unable to attend public school because they don't have a permanent address. High school age Deaf students at the school copied a pair of pants three times in three different materials so I could have appropriate work pants. So now I have two pair of black pants and a pair of brown pants that go withmy white and pastel dress shirts that I can wear to Deaf Development. Deaf Development provides the interpreters for Mit Samlanh so Deaf students can take sewing, motorcycle repair, cosmetology, massage and manicure/pedicure classes.

Around the corner I almost collided with the ice man. At this hour of the morning, a truck filled with block ice drives through the neighborhood filling the coolers for local businesses. Since electricity is never consistent here and since most businesses have a streetside service there are mini-fridge sized coolers on the sidewalk so sodas, fish and veggies can be served on demand. Each block is cut with a handsaw to size and dropped with huge pincers into the coolers.




Further around the corner, near the back entrance to the Royal Palace is a small branch of the city's most American eatery... USA Donuts No. 2. Just as the American embassy cannot escape the local custom of building and maintaining a spirit house for the land spirits displaced by the construction of the mammoth building, neither can an American business escape the local custom of offering food and incense to the statue of the female bodhisattva who protects this business. Coffee and doughnuts anyone?


Turning back towards my house, I see some guys playing a game of volleyball, second only in popularity to badminton. They are playing on the sidewalk surrounding the park that fronts the National Museum and rolls up next to the Royal Palace (the tower in the background.) Note that they don't have a net, so their stingray substitutes.

I have made great friends with my co-workers here in Phnom Penh at Deaf Development Program. My closest co-workers are the seven interpreters who I admire greatly. While I am supposed to be a trainer, I have learned a great deal from them. The men, Phirom and Donh have taught me a great deal about comradeship especially because Khmer men can be very physical between themselves in a way that Westerners cannot.

I have become good friends with the lead, Vichet (second from left), Maly and Veasna (who I have been able to observe working at Mit Samlanh (the school for street kids beneath my bedroom window.)



I'm grateful to have been able to meet interpreters from across Southeast and South Asia. At the interpreting conference in Kuala Lumpur I was able to meet and befriend folks from Malaysia, the Maldives (islands southeast of India), and the Phillipines. What a great privilege to work in the same field as such pioneers.




Justin Smith is DDP's deputy director. I work with him and his staff at Deaf Community Center to document the organization's oral history on video. He came to DDP like myself as a volunteer and now is responsible for much of the actual program work of the organization. He is leading the effort to develop a stable community among Deaf people. Recent events here have shown that Deaf people have primarily their own individual interests at heart and haven't really grown a sensiblity of Deaf co-0peration. He's leading programs to develop a team spirit among them.


Charlie Dittmeier is DDP's director. He is a diocesan Catholic priest from Louisville, Kentucky who works as an associate of Maryknoll Missioners. Many of you may know that I was adopted by Japanese Americans who were raised by Maryknoll Sisters and I myself went to elementary and junior high school under Maryknoll Sisters. It's a privilege to work with such forward thinking men and women. Charlie has been working among Deaf people for almost 30 years in India, Hong Kong and now here. He's a jack of all trades and is the principal fundraiser, computer network fix-it guy and social worker at DDP.

About 13 km (8 miles) from Siem Reap town some of the ruins pre-date Ankor Wat. You have seen here earlier the ruins of Bakong and Preah Ko, the island temple and the temple to the Hindu manifestation of the god, Shiva. Another part of the Ruluos group of temples is this temple. This temple is notable not just because it comes from the 8th century, but because of its contemporary history.

This temple, set on a hill, became an ideal lookout point for the 1970'sKhmer Rouge soldiers trying to defend against Vietnamese invaders. Note the white repairs done on the temple. Those are are plaster repairs done to bullet and shell pockmarks.

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre is still active today clearing farms, ruins and urban areas of landmines that have wreaked so much damage and loss of life and limb here. They have been working in this temple clearing out the mines placed among the ruins to defend this military position. Note the red post with the label CMAC. It's a warning that landmines have been found in the area. Should you ever go to Ankor Wat follow this basic rule at all times, "Never go off the beaten path." Phnom Penh is full of landmine survivors begging or eeking out a barely survivable living .

Here a temple hasn't fallen apart just by gravity. The stones here tumbled under the pressure of cannons placed here pointing out towards Vietnamese arm outposts. The cannons then also became targets for the invading army so both sides were to blame for the modern condition of the temples.

Deaf Development Program where I work has a job training program where 40 young people from 16-25 learn sewing, motorcycle repair, cosmetology and woodcarving. The programs where they learn are in Phnom Penh at Wat Tham (a Buddhist temple with an education program for people with disabilities) and at Mit Samlanh (Street Friends, the school beneath my bedroom window.) The Deaf students from the provinces outside of Phnom Penh are housed in this hostel where they have after school activities and opportunities to learn social skills and community organizing. Young people are very protected in Khmer families and moreso if they have a disability. Many have never been to the marketplace or have never been outside their own provinces in their entire lives.


Since many of the young people do not read for themselves, the house rules are written in Khmer and summarized in photos of Cambodian Sign Language. This particular rule tells the students that everyone gets treated as partners and as equals. Other rules talk about not stealing, lying or destroying hostel properties.

Eating in Cambodia is wonderful. Not only are there fantastic foreign restaurants for the visitor tastes, but there are also local cuisines by the millions. Literally every province here has a different cuisine and some different delicacy to excite anyone's taste buds.

My friend Nop Kong took me shopping before we went to h is house for lunch when I was up in Siem Reap (near Ankor Wat.) The first market we encountered was off the beaten path (quite literally) and we drove his motorcycle down the one pedestrian wide lane to look for fish.

What I encountered more than just the fish still flopping in the plastic pans the vendors had laid out in front of them were some unusual vegetables. You've read that my favorite food in all of Cambodia is morning glory stems in oyster sauce. These water lilies come a close second. They are stir fried in with chicken, beef or other vegetables and sauce to add a pungent kick to an entree or to a soup.

On the road between the two markets we visited, I noticed these little structures in almost every farm. I hadn't the foggiest notion what they might be so I asked. Note that there are flourescent lamps on top of each structure and that there is a pool of water in the plastic sheeting on the ground. At night a second plastic sheet is strung between the posts and the lights are turned on. Crickets attracted to the lights jump up, hit the plastic sheet and fall into the pool of water and drown. The farmers collect them, fry them, cover them in a little bit of salt and palm juice sugar and voilà the perfect movie watching or soccer game snack.


You can buy any number of delicacies from the provinces delivered fresh every weekend near the riverfront in Phnom Penh. Strolling couples and families pick up (front row) newborn chicks, locusts, shrimp, (second row) cockroaches, crickets and another bug (don't expect me to know everything that hops in Cambodia), garden snakes, clams, quail eggs and snails.

This particular stand is very popular because the snacks are from all over Cambodia. It takes several hours to get to Phnom Penh from many of the provinces and the bugs and animals must be eaten fresh or they don't taste good. So, these are brought in plastic bags by farmers coming in from the surrounding provinces to sell produce. Call them a by product of vegetable cultivation. Mind you I don't eat much meat... Bugs are meat.

The only thing in Phnom Penh more common than massage parlors and traffic cops on the take is cell phone vendors. Here in my neighborhood in the short distance of one block there are seven different cell phone vendors. The only business on the street that isn't a cell phone vendor is the pharmacy under the white and blue cross. Because of Cambodia's unique entry into the modern world after having been dragged into the dark ages during Pol Pot's regime there were very few landline telephones in the '90's. So the cell phone industry took a flying leap over all that infra structure and landed in Phnom Penh with a vengeance. There are at least seven or eight cell phone numbers for every landline number. In fact, businesses will advertise their cell number long before they advertise their landline because it is cheaper to call a cell line froma cell phone. DDP's business manager has three cell phones so he can keep in touch with his girlfriend and family each of whom uses a different cell company. When I came in December there were three or four cell companies now there are seven or eight.

There's a lot you can tell about a business by its signs. The cell phone companies have their English language name and ads more prominently displayed than their Khmer versions. That's because they want to impress people with the idea that they are a modern business. This laundry has its Khmer name on the awning and under the awning in the permanent sign is its name, its service line and phone number all in Khmer but the one foreign language line is in French. That means this business was established before Pol Pot's time (1975-1979) and that the owners abandoned the place when Pol Pot forced everyone out of the city and into communal farms far away. They came back to the very same business afterwards and survive today!




This bookstore is very different than other businesses. First notice that there is no foreign language on its sign. Business and organizational signs in Phnom Penh all have some foreign language on them (usually English.) But this one doesn't. Other bookstores have mostly English language books for sale, this one has only Khmer language books. What gives?
The only organizations that don't have at least a word or two in English in their signs are the Buddhist wat or temples. This bookstore follows that same line of thinking.

Other bookstores sell the most available product, English language books. Remember that Pol Pot wanted to drag Cambodia back to "year zero." He destroyed almost all the Khmer language books available making it impossible to study today without resorting ot English or French texts. But what did survive were Buddhist texts. The monks buried copies for safekeeping and succeeded in saving a culture. The monks did not survive (They were either murdered or they abandoned their vocation) but their books did. This bookstore stocks only Khmer language texts on Buddhism. On this day, only a Buddhist monk was in the store.

Remember how my street is the city's art district? Four doors down from us is the Reyum Institute, a Rockefeller foundation contemporary art space. All forms of media find space here from contemporary Khmer food (the last exhibit from May to July 2009), wooden architecture (December 2008-February 2009) and now reflections on Khmer religious practice. It took me several takes to recognize this first painting as a reclining Buddha.










This next painting has the whole meaning of Buddhist practice at heart. It is after all "awaking" that it the purpose of all Dharma or teaching.















Meditation brings all beings to the point of awaking and an awareness of the need to rid ourselves of greed, desire and selfishness. These pieces remind us that religion is central to the lives of every Khmer.

Okay folks, we're taking bets on the game right now. We're only playing for poker cards and only for face cards. Place your bets now! The game's about to start!










"Stripes" is ready on the defense. The goalie is winding up to pitch and it's a slipper!
That's right they're pitching a light blue slipper. With no ball kids in Cambodia pitch and kick their shoes in miniature games of urban soccer.







It's "Camo" for the return. He's got his eye on the goal tile squares and he aims and fires. It's a GOAL!











The defense protests and it takes every player to measure just how far across the tile the rubber slipper skidded. By consensus it is a goal, "Stripes" and "Orange" win this round. This game might be over, but the series continues.

The old truism here is that if you cannot get it on the street, it ain't worth having. You've seen earlier that you can get a haircut and shave for $1 USD on the street.(No, I haven't done it because I hate the pull of squeeze (non electric) hair cutting.) But here in front of DDP (where I work ) on the utility bench a family uses as their front room a man is having his fortune read by a Sikh man from India. (The DDP security guard is watching over the Khmer man's shoulder.)











Food is especially available on the street here. It's cooked in these concrete stoves or smaller versions that are carried in pole baskets. Customers simply sit on the plastic chairs vendors carry with them. The fuel for the stove is brought to you by charcoal vendors on their carts complete with scales to weigh each piece of charcoal (which by comes not in briquets but in 12-18 inch long logs.)





This vendor carries all his food and wares in plastic bags attached to his cart which bicycle operated. If you look closely the blue bag has meat in it, while the clear bag has veggies. His drinking water and cups are in the plastic bucket and the white styrofoam is for carry out. I patronize this vendor mostly because he has ramen noodles which he fries up with an egg (and if you want bacon..yeachhh.) for 65 cents USD. It's a great breakfast, though I wouldn't trust either the water or the cups that he dips into the bucket. For that I simply walk in to the US style supermarket behind him called "Pencil" and pronounced in English. For dessert I can simply walk into the supermarket and find Utah's favorite ice cream store, "Swensen's." But the best part of the day really is breakfast at "Bicycle Vendor."




In Siem Reap, people are up and out of the house by 5 a.m. to get to work ahead of the tourists. They dine at this set of card tables and plastic chairs. The glass showcase on the table has the food cooked and ready to eat. When the vendor is ready to close up shop, she simply packs up the chairs, folds the table cloth and takes down the tables and will amazingly enough probably load them onto a motorcycle for the evening. People use motorcycles here like utility trucks. I will make sure to take a picture of some of the loads motorycles carry here.



Now, of course, if you are a poor vendor and can't afford a motorcycle, chairs and card tables, not to worry. A simple coolie pole and two baskets are enough to carry your wares, food, stove (note ont he left hand basket) and enough condiments to satisfy the average customer. Chairs aren't necessary in this country where squatting on the street is the custom. Note this vendor even carries her dishes and a little bit of noodle salad cooled by ice int he bowls in the right basket. A co-worker of mine is eating lunch in front of the shack to the right of the front door of Deaf Development program.

As you know, I am here to work with the sign language interpreters of Phnom Penh. These 7 men and women are pioneers since they are the first and only sign language interpreters in the country. The sign language itself is only 12 years old since the first visitor from Finland invited the Deaf people she met in the markets and on the streets to come together in a social setting. Prior to her coming to Phnom Penh in 1996 Deaf people had never known each other, and certainly never conversed. Many had seen each other in public but had not dared to talk with each other. If there is no social need for language, it is not created in the community. It was only after Deaf people began to gather that a need for a common language, and not just gestures to work household tasks with family became apparent.




Language in Cambodia is an amazing thing. It fits social needs very neatly. For example, in Khmer culture it is considered very impolite to refer to one's self too often. So in spoken Khmer, when using a pronoun for example, khnyom or I, it is used only once in a text followed by a verb. There after in the conversation or text the pronoun is left completely out until there is a need to talk about someone else then that pronoun is used once and left out until the next change. In Cambodian sign language the same thing is accomplished in a different fashion. At the beginning of a conversation one can refer to him or herself by using the pronoun, me [pointing to one's self] followed by a verb. Thereafter in a conversation, one uses his or her own sign name and refers to him or herself in the third person. Hence, "Khnyom [pointing to one's self] go to lunch at 12 noon. Martin [using the sign name "eh, what's a matter you?"] likes to sleep for a while at lunch so he comes back to work at 2." In that last dialogue bit the pronoun "I" or "me" is used only once.

BTW, Cambodian Sign Language is unique in the world in that it may one of the world's few languages that has an S-O-V structure. In other words, the subject of a sentence is immediately followed by the object and then the verb. So, " MARTIN, BALL HE-THROWS [TOWARDS THE LISTENER.]"

The building I live in is a "shophouse" in local parlance. On the first floor is the art store where my landlord sells scultures, carvings and paintings of Cambodia. The cheapest of some of the wood sculptures is $250 USD only because they stand nearly six or seven feet tall.

The family has a large parking place for motorcycles and bicycles for themselves and for the tenants right where in the United States you might expect a living room. Instead to the left of the shop is a small kitchen for the family and their sleeping quarters is actually in the mezzanine area between what you can see as the first and second floors. Quite literally there is a half floor with a large picture window that extends out over the shop where the family sleeps in two rooms.




Our neighbors to the rear include an internationally renowned school for street children. They are the children who are homeless by dint of being orphaned or because their parents are homeless. They learn skills such as motorcycle repair, cosmetology, sewing, and shopkeeping. It's hard to think they are homeless survivors off their own wits. Yet, that's exactly what they do. I went down to watch some of the sign language interpreters during some festivities for International Anti-Drug Day. I was fortunate that one of the interpreters was keeping an eye on me. She warned me that someone was about to claim my camera and cellphone. As a put my hand in my pockets I could feel small fingers too.

This barber operates directly opposite the school in back of the Buddhist wat. For the equivalent of $1 you can get a cut and a shave equal to any salon in the US. Just don't mind the fact that to get to the shop you have to jump over an open sewer and remain quite still while smelling the garbage dump for the neighborhood.


Some neighbors a block away run a small outdoor diner. They use this platform as a place to organize their ingredients while cooking breakfast and lunch for all comers. By night this family of six uses this platform as a bed.








Off my balcony, I cannot tell you how pleasant it is to wake up to this sight... the National Museumv of Cambodia a stunning example of French colonial architecture.

Today I attended my second funeral since I've come to Phnom Penh. The first was for an Australian man who died suddenly while on vacation. Only his travelling companions were here to attend the funeral, so my boss, Charlie Dittmeier who is a Catholic priest invited me to accompany him to the Buddhist wat that also serves as a crematorium for downtown Phnom Penh. Death, a certain reality for all of us is not covered over or even decorated here.



The Australian's body was brought directly from the hospital morgue covered with a white cloth in a simple wooden coffin. After a few words from Charlie and a reading the body was lifted directly into the crematorium where a roaring fire was already stoked to recieve its burden and fuel.


Today's wake was for the mother of my colleague, Vichet, the lead interpreter at Deaf Development Program. Several of us drove out to Vichet's home where her mother was laid out in a coffin much like the white one in the upper left hand corner of the picture here. There in the family's living room, which if you will remember in my description of Khmer houses also serves as the bedroom, was the coffin, accompanied by a large portrait of Vichet's mother. Relatives sat stoically while friends called and offered traditional incense and prayer.


A small meal followed our visit. Vichet, ever the gracious hostess, thought not of herself but of her guests who she welcomed with tearful but open arms. A professional group supports the family by hosting and preparing a wake meal and by bringing in the chairs, tents and tables needed to accomodate the mourners. In traditional Asian style friends offer envelopes of cash to defray the costs associated with the meals and funeral.

Vichet shed many tears as she described her mother's death and remains. I was impressed how she was able to express her feelings so openly in a traditionally tight lipped culture. But such openness was not true for all her siblings. In Cambodia, the youngest child of the deceased and sometimes other children shave their heads to mark the date of death. Her bald-headed younger brother sat stone-faced in shock surrounded by his friends who were joking and chatting. Clearly, he was not able to express his grief as openly, and his pain though "stuck" was no less obvious.

Tomorrow a hearse will take Vichet's mother's body to the crematorium. On Saturday, the family will host a traditional seventh day ceremony to remember their mother. This ceremony will be much more significant for the family and strict traditions will be followed to send their mother on to her next life. It occurred to me that funerals, wakes and memorial services ties the living to the deceased as well as tying the living to their cultures. So, such ceremonies while marking the life of one who has passed, really mark the ties of her or his relatives to their community and culture.

Back to memories of Siem Reap, I have some pictures of Bokor, the pre-Ankorian temples closest to my friend Kong's house. (This reminds me that he called last night and that I owe him a call.) Jayavarman 1 built Bakong as the second set of temples honoring the Hindu god Shiva. There are six temples in total with the central and most important being the temple to Shiva. Because this temple is 22 kilometers (12 miles) from Siem Reap, not too many people come out here. That doesn't prevent a gang of five, six and seven year olds who speak just enough English to sell postcards from ganging up on anyone who comes by.


Each of the temples in the Ankor Wat complex has one amazing feature. Each of them has a library attached to it. In this particular case, pre-1000 c.e. the builders of these great works also built a place for monks and others to study and keep the history of these kingdoms.

That books were as important a feature as the temples to these builders tells us one thing. Reading matters to civilization.





Leading to the temple itself there are richly decorated steps. Each of them is a lotus flower, much like those sold every day in every market in Cambodia. The lotus connects today's Cambodians to the Ankor kingdom.









As you leave the temples, you meet these oxen statues patiently waiting for Shiva to come out. It is said that Shiva will come out to meet his devotees and that he will ride these oxen. The oxen will become what the anthropologists call Shiva-vehicles. I can just imagine Shiva walking down the steps these days, petting the oxen, and waving down a motodup, a modern Shiva-vehicle.

In the middle of Phnom Penh is the hill that famously gave the city its name, Phnom (hill) Penh (the founder's name). Any natural hill begs for a Buddhist worship site since every wat (temple or pagoda) is built on an elevation, either natural or man made. Wat Phnom is one of the most famous temples in the city and its tallest stupa or bone reliquary for a famous or particularly practiced monk or individual is the visual center of the city. Next to it is the the post-2001 built American embassy. It's an intimidating structure with multiple guard stations and metal detecting equipment and imposing Marine guards.



Inside the embassy Americans cannot get away from the local custom of building a spirit house for the spirits who occupied the land before the building went up. Even on the Fourth of July incense sticks were burning to honor those spirits. This particular spirit house is unique in that it is made entirely of metal and weighs several hundred pounds. Like others a statue of the Buddha occupies a central place inside.









Partisan politics never fail to appear in American settings even in the Ankor kingdom. Sales of t-shirts were brisk especially one with an outline of Cambodia on the front with the words "Yes, We Did!" decorating a picture of President Obama overlaying Ankor Wat on the back. Voters were invited to sign a petition asking C ongress to clear up the difficulties in absentee voting that many here and in other countries encountered. Many states require that voters send guaranteed mail or courier packages to their home jurisdictions making voting cost at a minimum $50 USD.



One thing that isn't different about the Fourth even in an embassy in a foreign country is the gaudy decorations. Vendors at this celebration hawked barbeque ribs, hot dogs, Kentucky Fried Chicken (Halal meat-Muslim approved of course), and doughnuts. USA Donuts owned by a Khmer American returnee sold the calorie solid and nutritionally vacant pastries to any and all comers. I, of course, had to eat two... Don't tell anyone.. I suffered greatly afterward.

So that was the Fourth in Phnom Penh. A party at the embassy was only one of the many celebrations in the city for ex-pats. Several of the other parties involved the imbibing of large quantities of imported American, Thai, Khmer and Lao beer. Somehow I don't get how putting down several cans of "Beer Lao" has to do with American self-determination. But then I've never been one for these celebrations.