on the streets where we live

“I need an update on the state of the crèche.” I make this request when I spot Ian peering into the street below from the terrace. We now know the 4WD ute, parked in the street just below our place every evening, operates as a child minding service. The children who often occupy it happily skylark, shout, play and eat instead of being on the road. I was sorry to know clamps were being removed from it by the police early one morning but glad that this run of local businesses with young, working women have a small, safe urban playground for their children and a grannie who oversees and engages those children, at least until their own grannies arrive to take them home. That’s the primary use for the back of the ute. There are always at least three and sometimes many more kids so while it might not be ideal it’s better than nothing and certainly an ingenious solution to a problem that is not going anywhere anytime soon.

There is a foreigner who walks these streets daily: something we also do but with very different intent. We have spotted him while returning home from the market in the early morning, wandering back from a riverside stroll and on our way to and from many local places we frequent. He looks clean and pretty well dressed and often has one arm in a makeshift sling, created from a krama. Several times in the late afternoon we have noticed him quickly scoop something up and stash it in the sling. Finally we realized he was taking the offerings made at the temporary, street side altars many local businesses set up on the footpath, at the entrance or on a table nearby, for their businesses. It’s a daily practice and no one really seems to react or mind that he does this. “Is he really destitute?” I hear the naysayer in me ask. Some mornings he is out wandering without his sling and at least a couple of times we have seen him quietly sharing a beer with a mate in one of the many bars nearby, as we ourselves have been known to do. I’m not judging. It’s just an enigma. 

Recently a friend enlightened us about the wobbly financial scenarios many young Khmer are entangled in. There are tales of exploitation by loan sharks, accountants taking advantage of the loop holes and minimum transparency in the banking system and dubious community based financial arrangements between locals. In a society where so many are financially vulnerable or locked into generational poverty, this kind of predator behaviour sickens me. Financial literacy which might help avoid those kinds of traps and help people see the inherent danger in over burdening themselves with loan repayments, isn’t easily accessed and no doubt costs money those who need it most can’t afford. I’m no wiz kid on the financial management front myself and tend to oscillate between absolute frugality and unnecessary indulgence. However I do realize one can get into very difficult financial situations by refusing to compromise about what is actually affordable. Realistically the micro finance business is unscrupulous and leaves people with debts they might not be able to pay off before the next financial crisis hits.  That situation won’t negate the debt and so the spiral begins. 

oNe PhOtO a DaY JaNuArY 2022:

JANUARY 1st HOW I’M STARTING 2022: Begin as you intend to continue I say. We are travelling meeting up with friends and indulging in delicious healthy meals. We began 2022 with a gratitude tradition. Last night we read aloud our reflections on the many memorable moments of the last 12 months. Now to begin 2022 with a positive mindset and to continue this ritual of gratitude and appreciation

 

JANUARY 2nd THIS IS ME: At breakfast this morning in our favourite eatery in Phnom Penh. After the most relaxing and fun filled break we head home to Kep today

 

JANUARY 3rd BREAKFAST: The last hoorah on our Xmas/New Year domestic trip for me was this fabulous smashed avocado, mango and pickled radish on toasted seed bread with a poached egg breakfast. Some minutes later we were were in a vehicle hurtling towards reality and home and are very glad to be back in Kep right now

 

JANUARY 4th SOMETHING BLUE: Well I waited all day for clear blue skies and calm blue seas and wasn’t disappointed. When we went for our afternoon swim this was the vista

 

DECEMBER 5th THIS YEAR I’LL: focus on the positives, spend more time with friends and prioritise fun

 

JANUARY 6th BEGINS WITH G: Gecko graffiti I spotted on a wall in a demolition site

JANUARY 7th WORD TO LIVE BY: I started a gratitude practice several years ago when I was going through a rough patch and it has been a saving grace. I record at least three things I’m grateful for every day with photos and write up red letter days for a gratitude envelope and read them at the end of every year. Yesterday I added my first day to the jar for 2022

BTW: The Buddha is a shot of mine I had printed to hang on our wall but just haven’t managed to put it up yet

JANUARY 8th GET IN THE PHOTO: I have spent most of the morning preparing new resources to teach shapes as monk classes start again next week. It was actually quite difficult to get in the picture and as I am fond of saying, “this is as good as it gets”

 

JANUARY 9th PLAY: Today we hiked and had a picnic lunch in the Kep National Park. I just love the play of light on the incredible tree on the walking trail and photograph it every time we visit. This was a big achievement for me as I hiked our favourite path to our pond-picnic spot and back (10.8kms). That’s the greatest distance yet, since my knee surgery 14 months ago

 

JANUARY 10th MAKES ME SMILE: This pair of twins, who are often on their bikes and playing in our yard with their cousins always make me smile

 

JANUARY 11th LUNCH: We usually only eat breakfast and dinner but this was the picnic lunch we prepared for our hike with friends in the Kep National Park on Sunday

 

JANUARY 12th I AM HERE: Monks classes started yesterday and I took this in the break. I am here every Tuesday and Thursday morning for some learning fun and shenanigans

 

JANUARY 13th HAPPY: Of all the monks we have ever taught Peron would have to be the happiest. We had 7 in class on Tuesday and arrived to most of the boys hanging over the fence awaiting our arrival this morning and a total of 13 with at least 3 new novices and several more still out on the alms walk, this morning. It’s always a happy time at the pagoda

JANUARY 14th REFLECTION: of the patched-up, old, galvanized iron, salt drying shed in the shallow waters of the salt ponds. We drove past this scene in the Tuk Tuk yesterday returning home from the monks’ class

 

JANUARY 15th HECK YES:  Mimosas in the front yard garden with our tribe. First home gathering for 2022 

 

JANUARY 16th SELF CARE: My idea of self-care is doing laps in the pool and that’s exactly where I was this afternoon

 

JANUARY 17 IN THE SKY: The latest addition to the pagoda is this column with four devotees all standing in an open lotus and giving the impression of floating in the sky when you look up at it

 

JANUARY 18th SERENITY: Today we walked home from the pagoda and stopped for a brief break and to admire this quiet, secluded, serene spot along the coast where there is a gap in the dense coverage of the mangroves, some shade and a glimpse of the sea view

 

JANUARY 19th LUCKY NUMBER: Think of a bingo call or if you happen to know it the Chinese idiom for walking! I know you can guess

(yep that would be “legs 11” and “the number 11 bus!”)

 

JANUARY 20th A PATH: Once again we returned from the pagoda via the salt fields and production is in full swing. The rain didn’t help this morning but the fields were teeming with rakers, spreaders, carters and storers. I can’t help but wonder how many times today she has walked that path to the drying shed

 

JANUARY 21st HAPPENS EVERY DAY: We eat healthy vegetarian food, which exemplifies an ‘eat a rainbow‘ philosophy and is almost always prepared with love from scratch at home. Tonight’s raw, roasted and pickled salad with feta is chilling in the fridge and I’ll make zucchini fritters to go with it when we return from our swim

JANUARY 22nd I LOVE THIS COLOUR: as anyone who knows me will already be well aware. I also have an obsession with scarves and natural fabrics

 

JANUARY 23rd PLACE: Blackburn Street; heritage listed circa 1880 row cottage. The first house I ever (jointly) owned. It’s more than a place to me it’s still home. We left Australia almost 11 years ago and this was the last photo I took a week before leaving. I have fond memories of the years we lived here and we haven’t been able to go home for over two years now…….. one day we will see it again

 

JANUARY 24th A SHAPE: These rectangular, recycled, reusable, postage packs are a great new addition to the range produced by the talented rural women at the IWA workshop here in Kep. We collected these three prototypes from the workshop yesterday and will mail them to Switzerland tomorrow. I hope they arrive in good shape and that the customer is not only satisfied but places a huge order

 

JANUARY 25th FLOWER: We see water lilies everywhere here in natural and man-made ponds and it’s on my hit list to have a second pot pond with white ones in it in the front yard

 

JANUARY 27th DINNER: My signature dish and one of my favourite dinners. Not tonight’s dinner but one I always love and have made for more than three decades

 

JANUARY 28th NATURE: Today we were out in the villages visiting friends and delivering backpacks to kindergarten children at Kep Gardens Association for IWA. In these parts nature looks a like this

 

JANUARY 29th A BOOK COVER: I mostly read on my iPad these days but love the work of this Bhutanese author and have read almost everything she has written, many several times over. This one is my favourite children’s book

 

JANUARY 30th MIRROR: “Good morning sleepy head.” Playing around with a little hand mirror before I was really awake

 

JANUARY 31st I NEED TO DO THIS: Honour the traditions and culture of places we have lived by continuing to remember and make the dishes we learned at that time. Today is the eve of Chinese New Year so we made dumplings from scratch just as members of northern Chinese communities all over the globe would be doing. Tonight, we have a Chinese banquet for dinner 

THE PROMPTS

 

 

oNe PhOtO a DaY nOvEmBeR 2021:

NOVEMBER 1st WHITE: The last flower on the Cuban Ginger in our garden

NOVEMBER 2nd BLACK: a natural, charcoal-dyed, aromatic candle in the guest bedroom

 

NOVEMBER 3rd GREEN: The small, green, lotus pod which remains in our pot pond now the petals of the flower have all been scattered in the wind

 

NOVEMBER 4th RED: the detail of the carving in the back of a beautiful, antique, Chinese, red, wooden chair

*This one was selected for the fab Four on Instagram

NOVEMBER 5th ORANGE: I prepared this little orange pumpkin for a frittata to take on our picnic tomorrow

 

NOVEMBER 6th BLUE: the recycled blue bag that we use to buy bread when we go to Kampot, which we did today enroute to our picnic spot at Toek Chhu. Say no to plastic. Be the change you wish to see in the world

 

NOVEMBER 7th YELLOW: I just spotted this yellow school sign near our house and think that it is perhaps new as schools have only just reopened here

 

NOVEMBER 8th PURPLE: Geisha Girl flower in the garden

 

NOVEMBER 9th AQUA: as the monsoon season draws to an end and the heat intensifies, nothing is more appealing than swimming in this aqua blue water

 

NOVEMBER 10th PINK: Delicious pink drinks made from dragon fruit and green coconut water were our after-swim refreshment today

NOVEMBER 11th GREY: In Tibet it’s a stupa, in Thailand it’s a chedi and in Bhutan it’s a chorten but I’m not sure what it’s called in Cambodia but it’s definitely grey

 

NOVEMBER 12th BROWN: Oatmeal, banana, raisins, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, chocolate chips and coconut cookies straight out of the oven ….. maybe it will inspire another picnic this weekend

 

NOVEMBER 13th POP OF COLOUR: A small prayer wheel from Bhutan that I spin everyday

 

NOVEMBER 14th STRIPES: These are the horizontal and vertical stripes on flags that say Buddhism all across South East Asia. These two were given to me by our little monks when we had just started teaching them. They hang in our house on the altar

 

NOVEMBER 15th FLORAL: The beautiful, floral pattern on this fine, bone China mug takes having tea in the garden to a whole new level

 

NOVEMBER 16th ONE COLOUR: The green view of trees, mangroves, rice and palms from the pagoda this morning before our class began

NOVEMBER 17th TWO COLOURS: Aqua and orange is my favourite two colour combination and these are my flippers or fins which I use in the pool to strengthen my knee, even though I don’t actually do my laps with them on

 

 

NOVEMBER 18th PATTERN: I liked this filigree leaf pattern so much I pasted it on the lid of this box which was also repurposed from the original soap packaging. Now what treasure will I store in it?

 

NOVEMBER 19th BLACK AND WHITE: A Buddha from the street of stone masons in Phnom Penh taken when we were there a month ago

 

NOVEMBER 20th RAINBOW: The little monks have now learnt the names of colours. This week we will do some rainbow colouring to reinforce their recognition and have some fun

 

NOVEMBER 21st ON MY HEAD: is a Panama hat we bought in Peru - not sure why that doesn’t make it a Peruvian hat but … that’s the monthly selfie and although I haven’t felt much like smiling lately at least this prompt made me try

 

NOVEMBER 22nd ON MY FEET: I always admire these original tiles, which remain in many of the restored buildings here and often photograph my feet on them but mostly my cheap, well-worn and comfy sandals are on my feet ……  There is one notable exception in this collage and they would be my only half way presentable closed toed shoes on my feet on what I think are the most stunning of all these tile designs

 

NOVEMBER 23rd MY FAVE COLOUR: is no secret! My fave colour and my fave sunset shot ever! Taken on Xmas Day in Oz many, many years ago. I’m just a lot distracted at the moment

 

NOVEMBER 24th MATCHING: Hopefully the removal of the hardware in my left knee will mean that soon I will have matching knees again, but right now the scenario is matching this time a year ago when all this started. Yay for the beginning of the final stage of healing

 

NOVEMBER 25th NATURAL: palm shadows and feet on the front porch

NOVEMBER 26th DARK: See you on the dark side of the moon….

NOVEMBER 27th LIGHT: That magical low tide, early morning light over the bay

 

NOVEMBER 28th PASTEL: One pastel pink lotus bud in the pot pond 

 NOVEMBER 29 BRIGHT: This newly- painted, bright relief is on a wall at the entrance to an incomplete stupa compound near the pagoda

NOVEMBER 30th GOLD: a line-up of gold Buddhas from the pagoda 

This one was selected for the fabbers grid on Facebook 

 

THE PROMPTS

 

 I think this is the first month in over four years that the little monks didn't appear in any of the images! 

Quite a few archive shots this month but given I had a procedure and haven't left the house for a week, I think that's OK. Actually I anticipated this turn of events and tried to take as many of the later prompts as I could earlier in the month so I could use them when it wasn't possible to get out and about.