GRIFFITH GLEANINGS APRIL 2021
We wish you a Happy Easter.
What are your favourite ways to celebrate Easter? As a family we would always have a supply of hot cross buns on Good Friday. Easter eggs emerged on Easter Sunday and provided a lot of joy to our children when they were young; so much so that they even liked to have multiple Easter egg hunts with the same batch of eggs!
Back in Cambodia this year there is little evidence around us that Easter is here at all this year. A bakery that some of the local foreigner’s visit is advertising specials on donuts this weekend. So, it appears that they have forgotten about this weekend being Easter and possibly are missing a marketing opportunity to sell hot cross buns. To our delight one of our local team mates did cook a batch of hot cross buns on Friday and dropped us off a couple!
As a family in Australia, we often went camping at Easter. Travelling to have special time together with family is also something that our Khmer friends like to do to be with family. They usually work 7 days a week all year, but once or twice a year they like to go back to their place of birth for 2 or 3 days and celebrate together Khmer New Year (this year in the middle of April) and another festival called Pchum Ben (in October).
Last year Khmer New Year was cancelled for COVID-19, and this year the festival whilst not cancelled at this point is going to be very subdued, due to heightened fear of the current COVID-19 outbreak and a lack of money in the local economy.
The capital city Phnom Penh has introduced a curfew between 8pm and 5am to reduce the threat of COVID-19. A more virulent virus strain began spreading in Phnom Penh on the 20th of February and containment efforts have not been successful since with 11 provinces now having infections and the 7-day average is currently 79 new cases per day. This might not sound high by international standards, but we know that many people are frightened to get tested when they have symptoms, there is limited infrastructure to treat patients and there are no reports of local contact tracing to give confidence that the virus will be contained. There are now regular reports of people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s dying.
In the midst of our village friends living in fear, we are imposing our own personal restrictions on mixing with people from outside the village where we live. There is no curfew or lock down at present where we live, but out of concern for vulnerable people in our community, we are staying clear of the city and places where people are mixing widely with others such as cafes and brought all of our meetings with foreigners to online meetings again. Our neighbours have expressed their thanks for caring for them in this way.
Thank you for the many messages at Easter and other times of love and encouragement you have sent our way.
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