Blog Post #13: Orientation, Scams and Tricks--Lessons Learned

The next day I went to orientation with some of the other volunteers whom were also starting the same week as me.  In total, there were about 10 of us.  First we were taken to the Star Kampuchea office (placement program) and given a quick summary on what is considered to be rude, polite and customary.

-          - Don’t touch elders on the shoulder—it is considered disrespectful 

-          - If you are offered food it is polite to accept and finish it all 

-          - People wear white to funerals not weddings 

-          - Tuk-tuks are taxi cabs with a carriage and you can basically use this to go anywhere in the city—price is   usually around 3-5 US dollars which depends where you want to go

-          - Mo-tos are basically mopeds and you can get anywhere on the city by riding on the back of one—price is about 50cents-2dollars 

-          - Cambodians eat spiders, rats, snake, rice, pig, chicken, fish, noodles, bugs, cockroaches, etc 

-          - Street food is usually more fresh than food you will find in a restaurant because the turnover rate is higher, which results in the food not sitting around as much 

-          - You shouldn’t wave to older people, but you can wave to children 

-          - Don’t drink the tap water—this should be obvious (lol)

-          - Etc

Afterwards, we would have our first Khmer language lesson with Brem.   After this, we were taken to the Russian Market.  

Fruit stand at the Russian market

Local cuisine in the Russian Market

Some stands outside the Russian Market

Inside the Russian Market.  You can get an idea here about the claustrophobic feeling.

The Russian Market is basically a place where you can buy anything and everything—basically the Cambodian Walmart (lol).   The first time I went to the Russian Market was a little overwhelming with the people and how close everything was.  After awhile though, I got quite used to it; still didn’t enjoy going there that much since I felt so claustrophobic while there and I was trying to be careful in spending money (lol).  It is hard to go into the market and not buy something since everything is so cheap relative to the more developed world.  I ended up buying an authentic North Face backpack for 12US dollars.  I learned later that I over paid by about 5US dollars, but that is acceptable since it was still a great deal.  There were North Face travel bags (similar to the one I am using on my trip) for 15US dollars.  You can tell when something is authentic and when it isn’t and these bags were legit (hahahah golf clubs).  The same bag would have cost around 180US dollars back in Canada—quite the deal indeed.  

After the Russian market we were taken to the riverside which is sort of the tourist area.  Here we found restaurants orientated towards tourists and a nice view of the river. There were numerous Cambodian people—usually kids or war victims—trying to sell you pirated books and movies.  The books were photocopies of the original and sold for about 1US dollar.  It is advised not to buy books or give children money because then you encourage them not to attend school but rather beg for money and sell services to tourists.  If you don’t encourage this behaviour then they will be more likely to attend school and get an education.  A common theme amongst parents is to give their younger children (from 8-14) their baby and send them to the streets to beg for money.  This act makes tourists more sympathetic, as you can probably imagine.  During orientation we were told that we can give food to these poverty stricken people—fair enough.  However, some of the locals are aware of this and will take advantage of it.   There was one ploy that one of the volunteers was victim of.  There was an 8year old girl with a 1year old baby and she came up to the one of the volunteers and told them that she needed milk for the baby—hmmm seems harmless enough.  So the volunteer went into the store next door and the girl and baby followed.  The volunteer picked out some milk and the girl said “no, the other one.”  Abiding to the little girls wishes the volunteer purchased the milk. We found out afterwards that  once the little girl received it, she would then take the milk back to the store and return it for the original price—which was obviously NOT what the volunteer bought it at.  The milk was purchased at almost 3 times its real price and the seller of the milk would profit some money along with the little girl.  So it was basically a systematic scam—lesson learned.  

We all enjoyed a drink on a patio while we engaged in conversation and enjoyed the HOT WINTER day (lol).  November and December are basically the cooler seasons in Cambodia and some people call them the winter months.  However, it is still very hot reaching humid temperatures in the 30’s.  Actually this right here reminds me of something.  The way the working day functions in Cambodia is people work from 8ish to 12ish, and then they work from 2ish till 5ish.  They get a 2 hour break because it is so hot at this time of the day and they expect people to seek shade.  

The next day we all would start our first day of work and get our first taste of the inner workings of the Cambodian way.