Phnom Penh--Back to the Past

---

Phnom Penh

This is somehow what I remembered when I first started in this line of work and somehow I recognize that it's something I have been missing in the posh places where I have been over the last few years in the Europe-Middle East region.

Phnom Penh reminds me alot of Africa. On the drive in from the airport, you pass block after block of
low-rise, cheaply constructed buildings with pharmacies, auto repair, and dental clinics on the ground level
fancy institutes and governmental buildings with weeds growing around their broken fences
people who stare into your car as you pass by
side streets which are not paved, barely paved, or paved but in disrepair
NGO cars racing through the traffic

I am staying at the Goldiana Hotel, which again is much like an African hotel with its
gaudy style furniture, all cheap but acting regally
shitty bathrooms, clean but made of the cheapest tile in ugly styles
a shower with low water pressure and that telephone thing that never fits right into the socket
a low, lumpy bed with too many blankets for the tropics

And at work, I am dealing with school feedings, caloric intake per child, and number of schools/health centers in a given province instead of "bringing people together" and trying to create 3rd World people in the image of NGO workers with plenty of meetings, coffee breaks, and strategizing.

So in some way, I feel like I've been missing this: the poverty, the real problems, and trying to find real solutions to them. I want to get back.

---