FINNDEPENDENCE

In honor of our wonderful Finnish co-worker Peppi, the entire PEPY crew summoned their inner-Finn this past Dec. 6, otherwise known as Finland's Day of Independence. Proudly sporting hand-crafted Finn Flag t-shirts and face-paint, we gathered on a rooftop for refreshments before descending on the town and painting it...well white and blue to be perfectly honest. Peppi was kind enough to teach us some essential Finnish phrases which we in turn taught to several moto drivers and the patrons of the Foreign Correspondence Club. Good times.

Mina rakustan suomi!(I love Finland)
Huva-itsanaisu-spyva (sp?) (Happy Independence Day)

New Finnish Friends


A traditional Finnish folk dance.

Mina olen Mikko. Nice to meet you.

Phnom Penh: Tonle Bassac Neighborhood

This is the first time I've lived in a real city. I don't count my university years spent in Raleigh, for it was rather spread out and seemed to have no character at all. While Phnom Penh is far from the most beautiful city I've seen, it has oodles of character--it's not just a place where people reside, but a breathing, pulsing organism.

I am constantly surprised how the posh and the poor exist so close together, quite literally in each others' backyard. I live on a narrow street in a quiet (sometimes) little neighborhood of two and three story French villas, inhabited by foreigners and wealthy Khmers. Spilling over the walls of these homes are the lush limbs of mango trees, stalks of bamboo, and other flowering branches, all shading the littered street below and entangling the knotted electrical lines. Within a 2-minute walk of my front door are a shanty-town, a long row of dilapidated apartments that look to collapse at any moment, a small community of tin-and-brick homes surrounding the pagoda, and a local market of covered wooden stalls cramped together, also looking rather unstable. The market is putrid and rather filthy, and yet curiously wonderful to explore, with tiny salons/nailshops, alongside stalls selling meat on hooks and covered in flies, alongside stalls selling only belts, alongside produce stalls with such treats as dragonfruit and rambutans and miniature bananas.

In the alley just outside our front gate, a group of moto and tuk-tuk drivers and layabouts spend the weekdays hanging out in the shade, hoping for a $1 fare from one of us foreigners. When not lounging on their vehicles, they are gathered in a circle, kneeling or sitting on the street, playing cards and gambling their riel. They are always quick to offer their services ("tuk-tuk suh?"), but are content to exchange a bit of Khmer when I refuse (usually I'm biking/walking). Our short conversations usually don't extend past "How's it going?" and "I'm hungry", but recently they've taken to looking inside my shopping bags when I return from the market, and trying to tell me the Khmer names of everything inside.

This post about living in PP was originally going to be quite long, but I think I'll continue it as a series of vignettes...

Bon Om Touk - The Water Festival

Last weekend held the annual Bon Om Touk Festival in Phnom Penh. The event is commonly called the Water Festival by English-speakers, but I believe it is more correctly translated as the Boat Race Festival. I heard several accounts as to the origin of the celebration--I imagine they all hold some truth. Apparently the races date to ancient times when the king wished to test the strength/speed of his warboats, as well as celebrate the Khmer naval victories. Additionally, the festival is a sort of thanksgiving, as Cambodians show appreciation for the mighty Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. There was some talk about November being the time of year when the Tonle Sap changes directions and flows upstream?!, but I only heard this from foreigners.



For the festival, some 500 long (20meter) pirogues and their 50-60 person crews gather in Phnom Penh from all over Cambodia, along with hundreds of thousands of folks from the provinces. The city, especially the streets and avenues near the riverfront, becomes choked with people, cart vendors, and motos. The masses gather on the concrete riverbank and for three days, watch the 500 boats compete on the Tonle Sap (to my eyes, still flowing downstream!). All day, pairs of boats, race the 1km course in the center of the river, and upon finishing, move to either bank, and began paddling back upstream to race again. I had a spot right at the finish line, but found I enjoyed watching the boats paddle upstream much more than the races. The crews passed just a few meters in front of me, and were all too eager to exchange hellos, sok sapbais, and smiles.




Many of the boats had a drummer to keep their spirits high, as well as a "character guy", a guy with a mask, or dressed in drag, who entertained his mates and the crowds. Each boat appeared to have two coxswains, one on the bow and stern--during the race the stern-men guide the boat and the bow-men dance to keep the paddlers in rhythm. A few boats had female bow-coxes, and there were a number of boats that had entirely female crews.






It was a gorgeous day, friend Daniela and I enjoyed watching on the riverbank for several hours before relocating to an acquaintance's third-floor apartment terrace, with a grand view of the river and away from the crowds.