A Post Long Overdue from Srok Khmer

Jumreap Sua,
Sok sabai chier te? Somthou, kniom awt see ser =/

Ok, in English now...

Greetings Everybody,
How are you? Sorry for not having written =/ I have had to fine tune my plans a little bit but am back on track ;p

A lot has developed since I wrote you last from Bangkok: I am now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia! Where to begin in a city so tangled up in its phleu/preahs (streets), psars (markets), motodops (taximotos), keteouy stands (Khmer noodles)! So let me start with my daily activities and add a bit of randomness...

5:45 AM - No "rain or shine" here. I wake up and put my running gear on to treck my way over to the Independence Monument where I jog around the park for about 45 minutes. The weather is somewhat of a dictator in Cambodia, and in Southeast Asia for that matter (the news is literally flooded with updates on Typhoon Ketsana and her sibblings). Sunrise and sunset are the ideal times during the day to workout so as to dodge the tough mid-day heat which often reaches up to 90 degrees F. When I first adopted this park as my outdoor gym, I was surprised by the number of Cambodians doing just the same. They also attend aerobic dance classes (could be the national sport) around 5 PM when you'll find people jumping and punching in unison to one instructor's directions! Everybody is looking forward to November because it marks the end of the wet season and ushers in the dry season. So students, myself included, will no longer opt out of attending class that day because of monsoon rains! The Water Festival, a tradition since the 9th century, is a tribute to this transitional weather. Villagers from all of Cambodia's 24 provinces flock to Phnom Penh to celebrate. According to the reviews I've read..."During this time Phnom Penh takes on a carnival atmosphere, and as well as the river banks being lined with exuberant spectators there are also live concerts, hundreds of food stands, games of chance, fair rides, and at night fireworks light up the sky and people dance in the street. This truly is Cambodia’s Mardi Gras!" So I will definitely keep you posted on this party if I do decide to brave the roudy crowd!

7:40 AM - Say a little prayer, secure your helmets, and play "survival of the fittest"! I heard someone describe PP's traffic as a quest for the "survival of the fittest". The motodop comes from the French word "moto-double" to describe a motorcycle for two and is the most efficient way to get from point A to B in Phnom Penh to beat the neck-to-neck traffic. However, there certainly is an opportunity cost for a little bit of time-saving: the risk of colliding with a fellow motodop. The traffic lights and dividing lines are ornaments for PP's busy streets. You'll have somebody driving in the 'wrong' side of the lane and honking at you for being in their way...even though they clearly are breaking the 'law'. It's amusing that some neighborhoods in NYC slap a $250-$300 fine for honking your horn...boy, wouldn't PP'S revenues increase by at least 1000% if it passed this law. However, I am lucky to have found Pou Pi Rum to drive me to and fro work and school. Thanks to him, I'm almost fluent in traffic terminology and am starting to recognize street names.

Morning in Phnom Penh is my favourite time of the day..it is BURSTING with energy. Everybody is in keteouy (breakfast noodles) stalls enjoying their last minutes of freedom before heading to work, school kids are riding their kongs (bicycles) to school, and vendors are setting up their newspaper and fruit stands for the day, if they have not already done so.

8:00 AM - FOCUS TIME. I arrive at Cambodia Microfinance Association's (CMA) headquarters located on a residential street on the other side of the city. CMA is a professional association which acts as the hub for 20 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Cambodia. As you may recall, I proposed to examine the development of social enterprises in Cambodia. After having been in Bangkok for one week and in Phnom Penh for nearly three weeks now, I realize that my project proposal would be barren without properly defining the ‘social entrepreneurship’ field. I have already met with several social entrepreneurs, one of which I wrote about in a previous post (The Jaab Design Company) and the term applied to all three social entrepreneurs despite their very different natures. Given the all-inclusive application of the term, I choose to narrow the parameters of my research to highlight the growth of Cambodia's microfinance sector, one of entrepreneurship’s many lenses.

Unlike Bangladesh's microfinance sector which was sowed by Muhamad Yunus in the 1970s, Cambodia's microfinance sector has gained momentum only very recently thanks to a more politically stable government. Because the Khmer Rouge regime decimated Cambodia's population and bulldozed all legal institutions, the economy has had to rebuild itself from zilch. The government installed the National Bank of Cambodia to manage the country's economy, but like most countries emerging out of conflict, it tried to play catch up by only investing in large-scale projects and coordinating with interntional businesses, rather than nurturing its micro-level economies. Therefore a lack of investment in local agriculture and little support for small enterprises left most Cambodians out of the money scheme. International NGOs filled the gap creatd by the banking sector by providing microcredit loans to the poorer segments of Cambodian society. The first microfinance experiments were credit-oriented, to provide a kick-start to new business activities. After 1993 and the international recognition of a new Cambodian government, aid started to flow in the country...

This part gets a little dense so I will gradually fill you in as I continue my research with CMA and have the opportunity to meet with a few MFI representatives in PP, as well as in the provinces.

12:00 PM - Chong niam mawhob Khmer, mmmmmmmm. Lunch time =) I get back from work and am ready to feast on anything, be it a pumpkin soup, amhok (a traditional Khmer dish made out of prahok, aka very strong-smelling, some say repulsive, fish), or simply rice with tuk trey (fish sauce). By the time I'm done with whatever delicacy I will have enjoyed, I've been struck with hard-core itis. This is usually when I choose to explore the streets, get my chores taken care of, or practice for my next Khmer class.

4:00 PM - Repeat after me: Kaw, Khaw, Ko, Kho, Ngo, Tchaw, Tchaww, Tcho, Tchoo, Nio. Great, you can join us at the Royal University of Phnom Penh for our daily Khmer for Foreigners course! But make sure you come everyday because catch-up is hard for this class. There are about 24 eyeballs scrambling between the workbook and the patient professor, desperately trying to adjust our phoenitics to the beautiful twists and turns of the Khmer language. Khmer is derived from Sanskrit, and in fact a lot of Khmer culture has its roots in Hinduism.

5:30 PM - See where the night takes us. Back home to wind down with Tata Annie (my lovely aunt), try one of PP's delicious interntional cuisines, or meet with new and old friends;)...Goodnight!

I hope you got to read what my daily schedule looks like. The weekend varies from week to week: I was in Svay Rieng last week and had the privilege to see where my Mak Yeay, and my aunt's and uncle's parents, were born. I'm headed off to Siem Reap this weekend to visit the enchanting temples of the Angkor Empire (both adventures will be elaborately illustrated in the next couple of posts). Feel free to write back and definitely keep me updated on your happenings.

Cheers!