Over there? Over here?

 

A discourse on perceptions, manipulations, and realities. Note my blog banner above.

Those of us who spend our lives in more than country tend to be asked the same questions.

“What is it like there?” Or “Why do stay there?”

Cambodia 25 years on: Leadership Without Regrets

Do you remember Cambodia's 1998 elections and the post-election violent crackdown?
Yes, of course I do and for more reasons than most.  Apart from the fact that I had worked to help make sure the elections took place, I also witnessed live-fire on protesters including two badly injured maybe dead monks by Wat Langka pagoda. 

It’s hard to believe but it is now 25 years since I landed in Cambodia.  I had left Rwanda and was supposed to be on my way to Haiti.  Fate however intervened.  I saw a job in the Cambodia Daily one day, applied for it and started work the next day.  I joined the work of Human Rights from the fields of Human Resources and Development.

Sadly I have to say that 25 years on, the work of Human Rights Defenders in Cambodia is needed as much today as it was 25 years ago – more so in some areas, less so in some.  Why is this?

The Prince’s Cubby Hole

https://www.knightfrank.com.kh/offices/prince-phnom-penh-tower

This blog is a sequel to one about:
the saga of dealing with the UK Home Office and its "brimful of brilliant people."

The British Embassy and Ambassador uses the title “UK in Cambodia” for its social media.  I wonder though if there’s much more Cambodianess going in to Britishness than the other way round?  I often muse about this whenever I see the remarkable efforts and sacrifices made to drum-up trade compared to what at one time would have been our once top British values – democracy, good governance, and human rights. I suppose “When in Rome do as the Romans do” is being applied along with “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

From Riches to Rags

Schools and Schooling/Trust and Abuse

It’s Pchum Ben in Cambodia the annual festival to remember ancestors.  My sleep has been disturbed by the partying from the night before that faded-out just as the very early morning chants began from the Buddhist pagodas.  I had the radio on but the BBC World Service was repeating a programme I’d heard before. There was still two hours to go until dawn and breakfast.  I was wide awake, so embarked upon one of those streams of consciousness you try to drift off to sleep.

Kept from House and Home

The UK Home Office gave my wife just two weeks to get out of the UK in November 2021 as soon as it abolished its Red List of countries for Covid19 travel restrictions. That meant both of us kicked out as it would be grossly unfair for the wife to travel alone. It did this irrespective of circumstances in the UK with the Omicron variant surging at that time; those en route or in Cambodia, and her Covid vaccination status that it ruled as "irrelevant". See Note 1 below.

An Alnwick chum beaten out of house and home

Most people never wonder what it is like to have to leave home. We mostly assume that we will be able to return and to be welcome back.  We expect to resume life as it was before our foray away. 

Community Organising Globally – Saving and Enhancing Lives

Your members and supporters might like to hear how the same devotion and skills that they apply in their communities are very effective abroad.  They are perhaps the best way for Foreign Aid interventions to succeed.

As the title in one of my blogs states I am an “Unlikely Aid Worker”.

When sparks fly 

Last month Cambodia's irrepressible young people discussed consumer rights in the country.  It seems there are efforts underway to begin to correct a persistent wrong over many years, one that I actually spoke about back in 2005 "Doing Business in Cambodia."

Well, after an altercation this week with Cambodia's monopoly Electricity Company (EdC) - that proclaims "high quality" and "best productive services" - you can see how much not only the legislative and regulatory frameworks must change but also the basic culture.