Back in Bangkok

After nearly a month in Cambodia, I'm finally back home in Bangkok. It's great to be back to a city that has things to do. I just found out, for instance, Michael Mann directed the new Miami Vice film - a fact of little worth when in Cambodia where International films are not screened.

Unfortunately, I got deathly ill on the 10 hour bus ride back. A bad bout with the runs and nausia has left me bed ridden. Who knows the genises of the culprit? Brushing my teeth with tap water? Contaminated food? Shaking hands with that old guy from the village? If the symptoms don't improve in 3 days I'm going to the doc. And I was just on Cipro 2 weeks ago too...

This illness has delayed training in my new favorite sport: Kick Boxing. While in Cambodia, I started to train with my cousin and the Cambodian army guys. The facilites are lackluster at best, and the verbal dialogue minimal. With fighting, explainations can be summed up pretty quickly without words. We now have a punching bag at our house in BKK.

More later, - J-Dub

From the Field

Near where I'm staying in Cambodia, there is a group of about 100 homes living in overwhelming squalor. The government is planning to build a road where these homes are located, but being the Cambodian Government, this will likely be at least another two years away. Most of the residents have built their meager homes, which usually consists of four wooden poles as frames and dried palm leaf thatch roofs and walls, from their own labor and minimal savings. They have come to the city from other provinces seeking jobs and a better life.

This is the some of the worst poverty I have seen since being in Asia. After conducting questionnaires, we found there are no toilets or restroom in the entire area. Residents instead use the bushes next to their homes. Water is plentiful but dirty and unsanitary. Dug pits are the norm around the homes and provide all the needed utilities that water provides including laundry, bathing, drinking and cooking. We were encouraged to find that most of the residents boil the water before drinking. Yet, most suffer from frequent headaches and dysentery.

While the women and children stay at home and willingly answer our questions, the men are out in the town working or looking for work. Far and away the most common job by the men was unskilled manual labor as in hauling concrete or bricks. The average wage for a job like this is 6,000 riel per day (just under $2). Many of the children run around without clothes and their smiles are a stark contrast to the piles of rubbish mounting around the homes.

After a full day in the field conducting interviews, I couldn't eat my dinner last night. The day of heat combined with the odors and images of such poverty disagreed with my stomach.

JWOC will definitely be helping these people.

~ J-Dub