Pramaoy doesn't really have a functioning garbage disposal system, so it's either burn it or throw it out your front door like all of our neighbors do.
Plastic trash moves easily with wind, so our lazy neighbors' garbage is usually scattered by dogs and weather in front of our room each day. I've lived here on and off for over 12 years, and I hate to admit I've given up trying to inform Cambodians about the dangers of dioxin and/or living among garbage.
University graduates and uneducated working folk both happily toss their trash just about anywhere you go in Cambodia, something that makes Cambodia a not so visually appealing country, and surely a factor in why most tourists spend a month in Thailand and Vietnam, but rarely spend more than 5 days in Cambodia.
We recycle as much as we can and discard our organic rubbish on vacant land, but we still produce a small shopping bag of trash every now and then, and I feel a obligation to dispose of it as responsibly as possible. This place is too small for a proper garbage truck and landfill service, so for now we take our trash to Elephant Roundabout where there are 4 public trash bins with NGO logos on them.
After living in Pramaoy for a few months I began to notice that not only are the bins at the roundabout now all full, but they haven't been emptied since we've lived here. Time will tell what will happen, but I assume a gust of wind will eventually blow the bins over and scatter the trash all around the roundabout. We create as little waste as possible, and even refuse plastic bags at the market, something that causes the veg and fruit sellers to think we are absolute whackos, but that's also why Cambodia is a bizarre, interesting, and often times a very fun and funny place to live.
Take everything you know as normal and then flip it 180 degrees, and that is Cambodia, so watching people zinging trash out their window is just one of the things you just have to learn to watch and accept. Even funnier is when Cambodians drink something while riding their motos, because more often than not, when the cup is empty they just let go of it, often not even bothering to throw it on the side of the road.
Okay, it's 2:00am and I haven't mentioned anything about this quick tour of Pramaoy. Lucky for me I didn't post this in HaveYouBeenHere, cause a Pramaoy Trash Run doesn't jive well with posts about where to find the best white sand beaches in Bali. Cambodia is a little rough around the edges, and so is Pramaoy, and that is actually one of the reasons I've grown to love Cambodia. I have failed to tell you a bit about Pramaoy so I guess I should just give up now and hope the video is entertaining enough without my babble.
🙏 GIVE THANKS 🙏 |
|---|
▶️ 3Speak
