March 2

go HERE to view my photos
Normally, I try my best to fit in, blend in, become invisible (when I go out to town, it never works). I avoid talking much to street people, with conditioned fear as a foreigner that I’ll receive my best attack of swindle; not from everybody, but most likely, at least, from someone. I tell the motodope in a quiet voice, “turn right, turn left, stop here (baht s-dam, baht chveng, choop ah-nee).” Hoping he won’t notice that I speak Khmer horribly with an American accent (if they know you’re American and you say you don’t have money, they call you a “liar”, the thing with me is that I don’t look like your stereotypical American, at least not when my mouth is closed, or so i've been told) I try to buy green beans in the open market, instead of asking for ¼ of a kilo (which failed miserably a previous time), I pick up a handful and dump it on the scale, grab a potato or two, maybe a carrot or tomato and ask in a quick and mumbling voice “Banh Manh ah-nie (how much for these here?)” hoping their reply is slow and over-articulated so I can catch the price and translate it in my head without her noticing my incomprehension of the language, “Manh?” (how much?), “Prohm pi roy" (5 prohm + 2 pi = 7 prohm pi, khmer only counts in intervals of 5, roy = 100, 700 reil is only 17½ ¢ US). Anyways, before this I always felt too guilty or intimidated to take pictures of the locals and their daily lives. I’d be a horrible photojournalist. Why do you want to take a picture of this stranger? Is it because they are bizarre, shocking, ugly, and/or pitiable? Is it because you haven’t seen it before and you don’t belong here? I don’t care for alienating people. And maybe it would be better and easier if I weren’t trying to go about a normal life here. But Liz and I decided that it would be a shame if we went all the way home without a picture to show of horrible, whimsical Cambodian life, of the street food, and poverty, Buddhism, beggars. So we put all of our fears and excuses aside and went to the Mekong riverside, and took some pictures. I actually got shooed away and shut down many a times, treated 100% like an obnoxious tourist (which there aren't many of, and Cambodians are not very polite) “get away from my food unless you are going to buy it, give me more money, this is not enough”. I got past the awkward requests to stick my camera is a stranger's face. My first attempts at photography in quite awhile, I’m glad to have captured them. I posted a couple I liked on flickr. Click the link above to view them, I hope you take a look and enjoy a few, or comment and let me know what you think of dear old corrupted Cambodia.