Joseph au Cambodge

Les merveilleuses aventures de votre serviteur au pays des Khmers

31 January 2006

Tuol Sleng

Tuol Sleng can be translated in several ways, among them a poisonous hill or a hill of those who bear guilt.

It is the name of the high school which the Khmer Rouges chose for their most secret prison, code-named S-21. There, they imprisoned in concentration-camp like conditions and tortured those whom they considered as enemies of the "Angkar", the Party, and their families, from grand-parents to newborns.

Many died in the prison as a result of the diseases, lack of food and bad treatment; but most of the prisoners were executed outside of the prison, in a village named Choeung Ek, after they had confessed to their plotting against the "Angkar" and given names of other "conspirators".

Their rule was not to kill under torture ; when it nevertheless happened, they documented the fact with a report and a picture. After they had obtained from the prisoner the "confession" they wanted (often the most ridiculous and insignification thing or the most unbelievable like for a simple peasant to be a spy of the CIA) and names (of course ), they would drive the prisoners to Choeung Ek At least 12,500 men, women and children (reportedly up to 20,000) were imprisoned, only 7 survived.

I visited the site on Sunday. The instruments of torture, the cells, the pictures of the victims upon arrival, the pictures of the bodies which were found when the prison was liberated, the pictures of those who died under torture are there. After a couple hours there I could not stand it anymore, I was overwhelmed by what I was seeing. There is also a weird effect coming from the fact that very little is protected under glass boxes and that visitors can walk into almost every cell and room. There is no feeling that one looks through a glass or any distance: had I wanted, I could have touched the bed of the high-ranking prisoners and the iron bar which restrained their legs. I could have lied down on the floor of an individual cell or a mass cell. With little maintenance, everything is still there, it has been only 27 years since the prison was liberated...

Rithy Panh's movie Bophana was screened. The film tells the story of Bophana, a young and beautiful woman who's life was a tragedy from the beginning to the end. She symbolizes the suffering of the Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge regime. She is one of the victims of S-21.

29 January 2006

French Cultural Center


Picture taken in the "Cafe du Centre", the cafe of the French Cultural Center.Beautiful setting, excellent food and very nice service. I recommend it! (Butif you know the editors of the "Lonely Planet for Mosquitoes" can you ask themto remove the Cafe du Centre from their best pick list?)


The National Museum is a beautiful red building. I didn't take pictures insidebut I liked this (probably modern) sculpture with the small palm tree.

Outside, rickshaws (or whatever you want to call them) wait, bicycles and bonzes go on their way....

The Mekong


Not the best picture ever obviously, and I haven't really spent much time on the shores of the Mekong yet, but enjoy here in (too bright) daylight the color of the horizon and the sea-like size of the river in front of the Royal Palace...
Actually, I never remember exactly which arm of the river is technically the Mekong which one is the Tonle Sap (or large lake, stretching all the way to Siem Reap).


I like this image because it symbolizes the different worlds which coexist.
From top to bottom: the Wat Koh Pagoda, a building built around it inside the Pagoda complex which can be a school or a regular house, a generator, a car a small motorbike.

The Pagoda symbolizes the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of this country, the house its struggling for decent living conditions.

The generator is used by the nearby "Big A" supermarket (mainly for air-conditioning and freezers). The supermarket is very modern, with imported products from all around the world (Thailand, Singapore, Europe, United States...) All I could find in the store that was not imported was some beer brewed in Sihanoukville. I'm not sure about vegetables. Yogurt, toilet paper, soap are all imported.

Some people have a car (a large 4-wheel drive if they can afford it) and can try to live in the "industrialized" way by buying there grocery in a modern supermarket. But the infrastructure is not there (as shown by the generator), the produce are imported therefore this cannot grow to serve more than a happy few.

Most people use the motorbike as means of transportation inside the city.

A picture finally!


Dear All,

So much to tell since my last post: the market, the Chinese New Year, the National Museum, the Tuol Sleng Khmer Rouge Genocide Memorial, but let's start with some pictures if the Internet connection agrees to it...

Well I got one through, I'll try to publish this article and add more afterwards. Just North of the CCF there is a Pagoda called Wat Koh. All around it are small shops. Among them, this store which sells rice. The woman posed for my picture with her beautiful smile and the Coca-Cola advertisement in the back.

I'll be back with more hopefully in a matter of minutes.

Joseph

26 January 2006

Overwhelmed by work

Dear Friends,

Forgive me for not writing more, I've been working a lot during the past days: the team needs to finalize the plan of electric and network circuits, take some architectural decisions, check the quotations of the suppliers (and, most time-consumingly, coordinate ourselves on how to do all of that according to the rules of public markets...)

Yesterday we had the visit from a very eminent linguist, Alain Daniel, who is a counselor on the project, and from the German ambassador. I didn't try my German... Also a team from The Cambodia Daily was writing a report on Rithy Panh so two journalists and a photographer spent their day following his footsteps, which meant spending most of the day in our office... We feel honoured indeed.

I've rarely seen such a worn camera as the photographer's F90, but I'm certain it still works perfectly.

I bought a book of pictures taken by Roland Neveu, published in Bangkok, called "The Years of Turmoil". The pictures are excellent and go back to 1973. The cover page has a picture of the Khmers Rouges entering Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.

See the Time Magazine review of the first edition and the cover of the second edition.

Tonight there is a lecture by Père François Ponchaud, who had been here for already ten years in 1975, who tried to let the world know about the Khmers Rouges's regime, but was not heard until his book "Cambodia, Year Zero" was published in 1977.

Did you know that the daily Le Monde chose the headline "Phnom Penh libéré" on the day the Khmers Rouges entered the city?

A lot of foreigners were in the French Embassy when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmers Rouges and they witnessed the sick and the wounded being forced out of hospitals...

(My sources of information so far are an article in Amnesty International's "La Chronique" monthly, merci Michelle, and Roland Neveu's introduction to his book. I hope to get some first-hand information tonight...)

What is the saying? That those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it?

À bientôt everyone!

23 January 2006

Enfin il s'y met !

- Cours de khmer au Centre Culturel Français deux fois deux heures par
semaine (lundi et mercredi).

- Échange d'une demi-heure de khmer contre une heure d'anglais avec
Lida deux fois par semaine (mardi et jeudi).

Si vous avez des suggestions pour les méthodes de perfectionnement en
anglais... On a pour l'instant convenu de lire des articles de
journaux pendant une demi-heure et de converser pendant la deuxième
demi-heure.

Je suis levé depuis 5 heures, j'étais au restaurant pour le petit
déjeûner avant l'ouverture à 6h15, au travail avant 7 heures et j'y
suis encore à 19h40. Ça c'est une journée !

God, the sun and the Holy Spirit of electricity

During six days, God worked hard on creating the world and on the 6th day, Adam said: "Oh, my God, how am I going to shave when there's no electricity outlet here?" - "Sorry guy, God answered, it's 5 pm, my wife's waiting for me for Sabbath, I'll see ya next week." But the next week God was nowhere to be found... So mankind was left to make electricity by itself.
 
Phnom Penh has two fuel centrals but they're not equipped with turbines, they are just using engines! Basically, the whole city is on two large generators... Actually many buildings produce their own electricity because the high price (about 20 cts/kWh) only gets higher with higher consumption (in order theoretically to rationalize consumption).

Areas are blacked out in turns because production is lower than demand. Of course, my area is spared these black outs because important people live there... (Don't get the impression I'm living in a barbed wire-enclosed facility though: I would never stand that.)

I couldn't sleep and got up at 5am to turn off my fridge because I could not bear the idea of a polluting engine burning fuel to keep my can of coke cool... In France I can always say it's nuclear or hydraulic energy but here I have no excuse. So all I'll use at my place will be shaver, electric toothbrush, cell phone charger, and a light from time to time to walk from the door to my bed ( 1.5 meters) or from my bed to the bathroom (2 meters) plus the fan... I have bad feelings about the fan, I must say.

Please, researchers and engineers at MIT, Stanford, Technion and elsewhere: we need cheap, environment friendly and long-lasting solar cells and a way to keep electricity for the night!

The good news are that I found out a mosquito net is great to let one sleep in peace (especially when there is no mosquito inside the net).

Two bridges connect the city to the other side of the river. I've driven through one of them and I think I now know what a bottleneck is...

I'll have to tell you about the Central Market as well... Next time, I have to work now.

Love life and live for love.

Joseph

22 January 2006

Small update

I had bad feelings during the night: I meant don't buy me a garbage collection truck for my birthday. But if you are willing to buy one for Cambodia in honour of my birthday, you are very welcome to do so!

21 January 2006

Shabbat in Phnom Penh

Praying towards the west, saying "Machiv Harouah" when the temperature is 35 Celsius degrees in the shadow: this had not happened to me in a while...
 
I'm well settled in my little home, Magui's calendar on the wall and thoughts of my friends and family everywhere.
 
Enough about myself. The city has a garbage collection system, which it didn't have 10 years ago. One truck has a large sign: donated by the Latter Day Saints Charity. Seems like a useful gift but please don't take a hint for my birthday. There is one skip ("benne"?) where two are needed so the garbage collectors have to collect what is scattered on the floor with there hands (actually they also have a "pelle" but I don't know how to translate. I'm writing in English because of inappropriate keyboard, but I miss some vocabulary here and there.)
 
Did you know Prince Ranari is the 16th richest person in the World? He loves planes (he has four of them) and soccer (he has his own team). The only industry in the country is reportedly textile and I did see loadfuls of them at the Orussey Market (I thought it meant Russian Market, but the Russian market is something else).
 
I can count from 0 to 5: Son (0) Muy (1) Pee (2) Bye (3) Boon (4) Pram (5)
Then 6 to 9 is easy: Pram Muy, Pram Pee, Pram Bye, Pram Boon
But a thousand riels are only 25 cents so you need Dap (10), Roy (100) and Poin (1000).
 
Apart from that, "niam" means to eat, "bye" means rice (in addition to meaning three) and Thank You is "Okun" with the accent on the first syllable.
 
Khmer proverb of the day: If your enemy is on the ground, don't hit him/her up or he will stab you in the back one day.
 
Khmer joke of the day: A guy goes to the Pasteur Institute for a check up. When he comes back and asks for the result he is told: - For the liver it's ABC. - And for the lungs? - It's Alain Delon.
Need and explanation? ABC is a brand of beer, Alain Delon the leading brand of cigarettes...
 
Have fun whereever you are in the World!

19 January 2006



Ca c'était moi avant de partir. Le sourrire est un peu tordu, c'est normal, moi aussi.

J'ai quand même eu le visa...

Zut alors !

Un expat a tenu à me rassurer : la dengue s'incube 8 jours (en fait,
après vérification sur Internet de 48 heures à 8 jours, rarement plus)
donc le fait que je me sente bien ne signifie pas forcément que je me
porte bien !
Comme disait le Dr Knock, toute personne bien portante est un malade
qui s'ignore...
(Maman ne t'inquiète pas trop s'il te plaît, je dis ça pour rire...)

Demain, réunion de chantier, il paraît qu'il y aura des caractères, il
va falloir défendre becs et ongles mes positions existentialistes sur
le nombre et l'emplacement des prises réseau ;-)

Bon, ma collègue vient de m'échanger des cours d'anglais contre des
cours de khmer, ça va jaser dans le bureau :-)

Ce midi, je me suis lancé ! Je suis allé tout seul au marché russe trouver un casque de moto et une moustiquaire.
Bon pour le casque, c'était pas dans le marché mais en face que j'ai trouvé un magasin de casques de moto (oui, ici les magasins sont assez spécialisés...) et ça s'est bien passé, la vendeuse parlait bien l'anglais et m'a fait un prix correct (15$ quand ça vaut peut-être 12$).
Par contre, pour la moustiquaire je suis rentré bredouille. Bon j'ai essayé de dire "mosquito net" sans grand effet, par contre quand j'ai montré mes bras pleins de piqûres, ils ont compris tout de suite ! Mais ils ont voulu me vendre pour 20 dollars ce qui en vaut 3 à tout casser ici, donc j'ai laissé tomber. Je viendrqi qvec quelqu'un du cru pour réessayer...
J'emménage demain à midi dans mon petit chez moi

Le proverbe khmer du jour : Dressé, creux, courbé, plein. Noï skô aoun dâ kroâ. [Il s'agit du riz : si le grain est bien droit c'est qu'il est vide, s'il est courbé, il est bon.]

18 January 2006

Grande nouvelle : demain, je serre la pince de l'ambassadeur ! Et aussi d'un grand expert sur l'histoire du Cambodge : David Chandler.

J'espère que la démo va marcher... J'y travaille en tout cas : installation d'EasyPHP, de la base Hanuman et de l'application Opsis Média + quelques vidéos que j'ai transportées par avion à la sueur du mon front et avec le kérosène de la Thai Airways.

Lida me demande : pourquoi dit-on en Français "tranporter par avion", sans article, mais "transporter par le rail", "envoyer par la poste"... Bonne question effectivement ;-) Avis aux grammairiens (Monsieur le Père ?)

Proverbe khmer du jour : Petit à petit, l'oiseau fait son nid. Ce qui se dit : Tâ tâ ping bampong.

Les moustiques et moi avons plutôt mal dormi… Nous étions tout excités à l’idée des nombreuses tâches passionnantes qui nous attendaient aujourd’hui et à l’idée de vous parler par ce blog…

Nous squattons dans un loft d’artiste, une maison « chinoise » toute en hauteur, refaite à neuf avec beaucoup de goût. Quelques chauves-souris, un gecko et surtout Gamelle, le chien (sur sa gamelle est écrit « Le chien » bien sûr) nous tiennent compagnie s’il était besoin.

La bonne nouvelle du jour : pour l'instant, il ne fait pas vraiment chaud. C'est en avril qu'on va souffrir.

J'ai le choix entre une chambre avec une superbe terrasse dans un beau quartier (ambassade US, etc.) ou un studio dans un immeuble près du Phsa Dépô, marché très bruyant.
Alors en bon gaucho alter-mondialiste que je suis, je pense choisir... le calme et la tranquilité, loin du "peuple" bien sûr ! Affaire à suivre...