Greetings! I’m happy to be reporting from the Kingdom of Cambodia for IBJ. I’ll be here for the next few weeks and I look forward to giving you an “eyes on the ground” look into IBJ’s important work here and of life in Cambodia in general.

I’ll be based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capitol city (pop. 1 million) where IBJ’s office is located and traveling with IBJ Fellow Mr. Ouk Vandeth to document the work he does here in the many provinces throughout the country and here in the capital as well.

Let me pause here and give you a little explanation of his name because just reading it I got the pronunciation totally wrong. In Cambodia the Family name comes first and his is pronounced, in American English, like “You” without the “Y” and with a “K” on the end. His first name is pronounced “Wondet,” like “Wonder” but with a short “T” on the end instead of the “R.” Also of note is that in Cambodia you refer to people by their first name, so you’d say “Mr. Vandeth,” not “Mr. Ouk”. Things here are very casual in most situations it seems, so we just call him “Vandeth.”

I’ve had the first week to get myself acquainted with the city as Vandeth and Sarah Brundage (an American law student and IBJ intern here for 10 weeks) were out of town. So without further ado here are a few of the things I’ve seen in this bustling capital city.