It's been a long time! This episode is part of my first quarterly report, detailing my first impressions of the community and project. This will be more of a summary, since I have written about these things at length already in this blog.

Community

My work does not involve regular contact with the communities of interest to my NGO. My job description requires me to spend my time improving data presentation and management and statistical analysis skills of staff. I have, however, had contact with the four types of communities that are the focus of the NGO. These are relocation sites, eviction sites, urban poor settlements and settlements or communities threatened with eviction. I give an example of my experience at each.

Relocation sites

The most striking experience of all during my placement has been visiting Borei Keila relocation site in Udong. From the pictures at that link, you will appreciate why at least one journalist has described it as providing worse living conditions than some refugee camps. There was simply bare earth, a motley collection of tarpaulins stretched over improvised wooden frames, no running water or sanitation, and a group of quiet, hopeless people. I have visited a few 'developing' or 'third world' (both terms are loathsome) countries by now and in none of them have I seen this. Probably the closest prior experience was visiting the Aboriginal communities in an area called Utopia, 300km NE of Alice Springs, Australia. This place is not utopia. The people there do, however, have houses (admittedly horribly dilapidated ones). I went there as part of the then government's ill conceived 'Northern Territory Emergency Response', helping with decision making about welfare payments. This is another way in which they had it better than those in Udong.

Not all relocation sites are like this, though. One that has been far better managed is the Railways relocation site, Trapag Anhchangh to the NE of the airport. Here each plot has a toilet and there is a sewer system for the whole site. The only problem is that there has been a flood already since it was constructed in late 2011, and the water rose higher than the toilet pans, creating a problem. Overall I can say that my first impression of even one of the better relocation sites is that the living conditions are worse than where they came from in Phnom Penh. This leads us to eviction sites.

Eviction sites

Eviction sites are sometimes the least confronting because often there is a new building there, or just a vacant lot. We are nearing the end of finalising our dataset of these communities, presently our list runs 99 records long. An example of such is Phum 7 in Boeung Kak I commune. This has a blue fence (like many sites which are now vacant lots) around it, and is generally quiet and rather unintimidating. Other eviction sites are not so mild mannered. One which certainly lets you know something out of the ordinary recently took place is Village 21, Boeung Kak. Clicking that link will get you a video, where you'll see all of the destroyed houses of families that have accepted compensation from Shukaku Inc. Unfortunately for them, the area of land granted to Shukaku has since been reduced following complaints from the World Bank over their mistreatment.

Just as an update on some of my recent activity, I have edited Open Street Map to show the area now available to the company. I submitted the same edit to Google Maps which, much to my surprise, they have just approved! Feel free to vote in favour of it at that link though if you still want to. It hasn't appeared on Google Maps itself yet though, apparently these things take a while to propogate. Whilst I'm at it, my first attempt at updating Google Maps there was just to delete the Boeung Kak polygon, leaving a large blank area on the map. The person that approved it added a historical placemark saying what used to be there. This was even reported on by the Cambodia Daily! This change survived a week or so, then someone higher up at Google must have gotten the impression people didn't like it, and the lake was back. We'll see if the change actually does make it all the way through to civilians.

Back to Village 21. The Youtube video you saw is another strong first impression from my contact with the communities we serve in Phnom Penh. Not only were people evicted, but required to destroy their homes on the way out. We are now engaged in a project to map these vacated plots as part of submitting a proposal to the World Bank for people still living in the area to be granted permission to move to those lots. This is because, despite reducing the area given to Shukaku by 12.44Ha, there are still 60 households in the construction site. They might be able to move to these vacant lots if the World Bank and the municipality agree.

Urban Poor Settlements

At last count in 2009, there are 410 of these in Phnom Penh. To qualify for our survey, settlements had to comprise 10 households or more. My first impression is that these are everywhere in Phnom Penh. There is one out the back of our office, although it must be