Wednesday 22^nd October

Tuesday was wet, so I spent the time catching up on the diary, learning my Khmer and teaching the English class.

This morning after Mass I was invited to go with a group from the Church to take some fruit and food to the prison. This is a regular event providing some good nourishment for the prisoners, over and above what is available in the prison. Mai is in charge of this work. We all set off to go to the prison about 10.00, it is on the edge of the city, so took about half an hour to get there.





The prison is very well kept and looked good from the outside and indeed from the inside too, not so forbidding as English prisons can be. We were let in and the chosen men had been gathered ready for us to meet them. Mai is clearly well known at the prison and she introduced me and asked me to say a few words, which were translated for the men.



                                                                                                     
    


Sr Kanlayn, one of the Thai sisters working here, came with us, she has only just arrived in Siem Reap, so this was her first visit. She was great and got the men doing a simply game for a moment or two, which ended in much laughter. We gave out the food and the men dispersed. The prison is a mixed prison, food is given to the women another week.



 I got the impression that life inside the prison is better than outside for many of the men. It was all very clean and the men were housed in blocks rather than cells and seemed to be able to mingle easily. I was not allowed to take photos inside the prison, but could take some of the entrance area with its lovely garden tended by the prisoners.

It is still very much the wet season, so we have had some quite heavy rain on several days, but this is deemed to be very good as the dry season begins sometime during the next month. Cambodia is north of the equator, but in the tropics, so the sun is going south here too, we are beginning winter! This means the temperature drops to about 27 -30C, it becomes very dry and clear, Mediterranean style, and it cools a little at night. This becomes the best climate and high season for tourists to visit and enjoy Cambodia. I look forward to this change in the weather. This lady is collecting rain water into her reserve blue bin, later I watched her filter it and then bottle it, Raatana says she will use it for cooking, thereby saving on her water meter! Don't let anything go to waste!!

Thursday and Friday were pretty much ordinary days, teaching English and practicing Khmer. Then on Friday evening I had a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. Just before evening Mass Fr Panus said to me that there was a Bishop in town from Belgium trying to contact me. Sure enough there was a text on my phone giving a number.





When I called the number it was a bishop, but not from Belgium, from England, it was Bishop John Arnold from Westminster. He works with CAFOD and was here visiting their work and in Siem Reap for just one day, leaving at about 10.00 pm Friday evening for the airport. I was able to meet him at his hotel and have a drink and chat for about an hour, it was very good to see him and very kind of him to bother to call me. I have only met him about twice, he has been once to Bury St Edmunds for a funeral of a friend of his. Sr Denise at the Jesuit Reflection Centre here told about me and gave him my number. It was indeed a very pleasant surprise.

Saturday 25^th October

Ratana is busy trying to move rooms, she has to move by the end of the month, so she is washing and packing her things. Her own room, to which she is returning, has been used but not cleaned in the last two years and she is very cross, but has set to spring clean the whole place. So she is busy doing all that. However, today she spent some time with me in the morning. I needed an injection of money from an ATM (cash point) and then some shopping. After that we went to another little Cambodian roadside café where we had a very nice lunch for about $3. She is very pleased with me because I am happy to go to eat Cambodian style, at least in places she recommends, mostly these are not places where Europeans would generally go, but they are clean and the food is simple and very good.

At Mass this evening there were 5 priests, three concelebrating and two in the congregation, I am not sure what that says about the shortage of priests? Fr David from Shrewsbury Diocese has a link with Ta Om and is here preparing a parish visit, we were also joined by Fr Bruno a missionary from Bordeaux who has worked in Phnom Penh for 20 years, who was passing through. There was a big crowd, a large group from Singapore, 8 people from Chile, 4 from Blackpool and several Americans as well as the regular multi-national community.

After Mass I had agreed to take Ratana and Pharoth out for some fried rice in Pub Street, however that changed and we headed to 60^th Street, which is a Cambodian area, a little out of town with a night market and lots of life in the evenings.

Ratana knew a place doing wonderful BBQ chicken, so off we went. We found the place, a market stall really, with some bamboo staging at the back for sitting or reclining, covered with plastic sheeting. I am sure I was the first European ever to venture inside and caused quite a stir when we arrived. The food, a whole BBQ chicken and some stir fried noodles and some beers was all delicious. There was also a local character who caused a great deal of laughter, he had a new Samsung tablet and did not know how to turn it on, eventually it came to me and I got it on, not sure how, and then told him it was $2 for the charge, this caused great mirth all around!!

Sunday 26^th October

Rice soup on Sunday morning in Siem Reap, after Mass

     Some of the young people, having rice soup in the garden.

At mass in Khmer there were again 5 priests, I usually sit I the church for this Mass and try to join responses from my English phonic translation. After Mass Fr Panus was going to Kompong Cliang, a village on the lake for Mass, so I went with him and a few others. They have a learning centre which is open 5 days a week, morning and afternoon teaching the children, there are two teachers and about 60 children each session and they serve rice soup once a week, anything up to 200 people. So it is a busy and quite large operation, the village itself is strung out along the lakeside for a long way.





This is where we got on the boat, bit shaky, they do not get many tourists here, so no development yet.

In the dry season Fr Panus can drive to the church, but at present it is about 30 minutes by boat. There is a massive range of water level and area of the Tonle Sap lake, it increases in size fourfold in the wet season, hence the floating villages, and the water level can rise anything up to 10 metres.





         Fr Panus and staff going to Kompong Cliang

View across Tonle Sap during the wet season.

Kompong Cliang is a Cambodian village and it is not really a floating village. It is built on the side of the lake, but the houses are all on stilts to be above the water in the wet season. It is quite fascinating to see how they have adapted to their conditions.

Main Street, Kompong Cliang, in the wet season.

We arrived at the Church which is presently about 4 metres above the water, it was full of children waiting for rice soup and for Mass. The staff there had the water boiling and we had brought the meat, vegetables and rice, all was put in and left to cook during Mass.







The stilts of the church go 4 metres under the water too, and in the dry season it can be reached by car.












Few of the children are Catholic, but they all sit very still and quiet during Mass, Fr Panus is very good with them and engages them in the homily. After mass we served rice soup to about 150 people.

Preparing rice soup for about 150 people, it was so quick and efficient, the pot is the one on the left, the other one is just heating water for washing up.

Serving rice soup

After all had been cleared up, we watched the children playing in the water and then returned by boat and car to Siem Reap.

Ratana has gone back to her village for part of this week to say goodbye to her uncle from America and Pharoth is at work, so I will have a quieter week, swimming, teaching and cooking. Fr Panus and some of the staff go away on Tuesday for retreat for 9 days, so I will be acting parish priest for that time. I surprised the morning Mass crowd on Wednesday by saying all the parts of the Mass that interact with the people in Khmer, they were very complimentary about that afterwards. I have to say the Sunday Mass this week, so need to practice before then.

Thursday 30^th October

I have had a very quiet week, just the usual swimming, teaching and reading. I am reading the Confessions of St Augustine at present, something I should have done years ago, but never had the time. I went out for supper with Bernadette, a Belgian lady who runs Caritas here. She has worked in Cambodia since 1979 and has done all sorts of work and is still very much a “hands on lady”. Caritas employ about 60 people, all of them Cambodians, with Bernadette as the manager. They work in health care, HIV project caring for 1800 families living with this condition. They also work in the 7 prisons in this region. She has a busy time, but she does a great job, lovely to have a chat with her.

That is it for this time, I hope you all well. God bless, Fr Philip