Chuam Ben: Cambodian All Souls’ Day

Dear Friends, Family and other notable companions on this journey through Life.

What is there to say? My life has suddenly gotten very busy and complex. I have returned from language training early in order to help (write) a PowerPoint presentation for the deputy director of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Leang Nguon Ly.

There were some holidays in there, like the weekends and Chuam Ben, which is a very holy holiday for Buddhists. This is a time that everyone, it seems, goes home to visit at least seven Wats (temples) and give gifts of food, or money or something as an offering. There are a couple of reasons behind all of this. The gifts of food or money are to appease the spirits of ancestors who have passed on and are currently in Hell. They need to get out to be either reincarnated or to go to heaven. The reason that everyone goes home is that is where the ancestors passed away and since they don’t travel well, you have to go where they are. The second reason is that the living have to visit seven Wats in order that they don’t miss their proper spirit. If they do, there is great consternation, (you can read anger in this) and bad luck or retribution will follow. The spirits evidently don’t hang out in one Wat; they go from Wat to Wat. I asked, “What if there is more than seven Wats in a community? PP has hundreds.” The answer was ‘Is ok, seven is enough.”

Tomorrow and Sunday are holidays of course and Monday is yet another holiday, the nature of which, I do not have a clue. Tuesday we leave for Viet Nam. I have my ticket and visa and I will pack my bag and pray that the q/a at the conference is mercifully short. Come back on the 3rd of November and I think I will respect All Souls Day and offer several gifts of food and money to my dear respected previously departed saints and otherwise. I will visit one or two churches of which there are a surprising number here in PP.

Love to all. Richard.

Back in business!

I am very sorry for the ungodly length of time since my last update. Time has passed fairly rapidly and without too much of an unsettling nature, but with sufficient problems to warrant some annoyance. I don’t want to make this a “bitch” letter so I will simply relate some of the factors that have caused me concern and let your imaginations deal with how a mild-mannered guy like myself manages them.

First my computer. I think I shared the saga of the abused computer and the valiant efforts to revive it. Through my own fault, I had schemed very imaginatively to conceal my computer under a pillow in the guest house in Kampong Chaanam. I did this because I had been warned that there seemed to be a better grade of thieves in this town. Because it was a guesthouse and I was paying big dollars ($5/night) we had maid service. While I was at the workshop, the maid came in and surely grabbed the sheets, gave them a vigorous toss, and of course, the computer went flying. Not being one of those indestructible windows type of computers, which weigh fifty pounds and have a movie screen, my computer took the fall badly. The result was no power. I took it to a reputable computer shop, and they sent it to Singapore (twice) but to no avail, and I finally took it back to memorialize it in some later ceremony. I bought another, almost exact, duplicate, except this Mac Book is in black, which fit my mood better. And then I began the restoration.

Second, the restoration. This really wasn’t too bad since my daughter had created a great backup system for me, and I only had to decode the methods to restore. The first thing was to get rid of the trial Microsoft office application. This was only good for 30 days and wouldn’t let me print anything in the meanwhile. I finally got the application from my backup and it worked so I dumped the trial application. Then, purely by accident, I loaded all of my music back on. I have lost the music twice now and both times have restored it and could not tell you how if you held a gun to my head. There are approximately 1800 songs, many of which I had purchased from iTunes. (Can you see what is coming?) When I went to play one of my “Crickets” songs by Buddy Holly I got the message this is a new computer and is not authorized to play this iTunes song. Do you want to have iTunes authorize the song? Sure, I did. But, iTunes does not work in Asia, only in North America and Europe and a few other developed (read affluent) nations. So, again, you can imagine how a mild-mannered guy like myself manages this type of capitalistic nonsense. In case you can’t, I am planning to dump all of this music (renaming the songs didn’t help) and buy pirated copies for $1 a CD. Giving up one bandit for another seems like good old-fashioned “fair-play” to me.

Third, the Windfall. A group of nations (affluent) have gotten together and donated a large sum of cash to another group of nations (poor as church mice) to help their educational systems. It is called an FTI or “Fast Track Initiative”. This is so-named because it has to be spent in the next three years. Cambodia came in for the second largest amount, $57.4 million, even though Cambodia is way down the list in terms of size.

Today I enjoyed learning how to ride a moto, a small motorcycle about 125 ccs. It was great fun but I know I will never ride one in Phnom Penh since I have enough close encounters of a first and second kind without the benefit of a powerful machine between my legs. (No jokes or laughter, please.) This is another story that will be continued.

For now, this is your wandering pilgrim hopefully back on the communications track and wondering how I got lost. It is still fun although with a definitely shady side to the humor.