Back in Phnom Penh, and going north east.

It was of course difficult to leave Stockholm and my loved ones behind after three wonderful weeks together. But luckily, I also felt immediately at home when I landed at the airport in Phnom Penh. It´s amazing how quickly you adapt, isn´t it? Seeing my friends here also helped, of course; thank you Johan, Mimmi & Albin and Marco for being such lovely friends. Now I´m looking forward to Janne´s visit over Christmas and the New Year. Hopefully, I´ll also get visits from some friends as well; Louise in mid-December, and hopefully will Michael be able to make it here from London in October/November.

This week, the work has really kicked off for sure. Tomorrow, I´m leaving for a weeks field trip to north eastern Cambodia . Me and a couple of colleagues are going to Stung Treng and Ratanakiri in north eastern Cambodia, to visit two of our Cambodian partner organisations who works with Democracy and Human Rights there. North eastern Cambodia is supposed to be very different and beautiful, it´s fairly remote and populated by indigenous people, so it´s going to be very interesting to see. The situation for organisation working for human rights is getting more and more difficult, and Cambodian activist are being abducted and/or killed for claiming their rights. Land grabbing is a common problem; rich and powerful people stealing land from poor and indigenous people, taking away their possibilities to make a living. This issue is one of the things we´ll look deeper into during the field trip, so I´m looking forward to a very interesting week.

For some information on where I´m heading this week, check;
http://www.travelfish.org/region/cambodia/northeastern_cambodia
http://www.travelfish.org/province/cambodia/northeastern_cambodia/ratanakiri