Through the German embassy (yes these guys are awfully nice and helpful here) I got in touch with Andrea, a young lawyer, from Munich who has been training people here in how to excercise their human right etc.. And through her I met Christine, a German who has already been in Phnom Penh in 1983.

It's really extraordinary: she grew up in the GDR and was force to study Khmer by the then socialists government in 1980. And so she was sent to Cambodia, then also a socialist country, in 1983 to improve her language skills. Fortunately she made scores of photos back then and even more fortunate for me, Andrea and her had agreed to meet for a cup of coffee to look at Christines photos from 1983. It was really interesting! For one thing Phnom Penh was a very, very green city back then. All the major roads were lined with palm trees and in some photos that she took from some where high up, Phnom Penh looks more like a huge park with some houses thrown in, then a metropolis. Unfortunately the city has lost a lot of the charm that's visible on these old photos. Today most of the trees have made room for billboards or neon-lights and uninspired concrete blocks take up a lot of the space that used to be parks. Other things seem to have changed surprisingly little. Take the "Russian Market" for example. A friend of Christine has taken some pics of her walking around the stalls. And I'm telling you - they are still selling the same t-shirts as back then!

Talking to Christine was interesting for a number of other reasons as well. Since she amde her PhD in modern Khmer history and has been living and working in PP since 1996, she knows virtually anybody here. And just talking to her I already go a few more ideas for stories that I could do.

The other thing I found very interesting is that she mentioned something about how German human aid workers are aid. 'Cause apparently they are not. Or not really. Apparenty the German law regulatiing development aid states that development aid may not be done for profit. And that means that all the human aid workers and a lot of German NGO-people do not get a salary at all! Instead everyone is getting a certain "living allowance" that is set by some german ministry and that depends only on the country you are in but not on your skills. So a secretary would earn the same as a Java-programmer. And while this concept may appeal to editors of the German "die taz" (who actually had the same system for a lot of years until they abandoned it) I think it simply cannot work if you want to convince professionals to come to third world countries and help. I mean, how many highly qualified people would be willing to come to a country like this for a meager "living allowance"? I think this is simply wrong. And what's more - I think it unfairly takes advantage of the few people who are willing to accept the pay cut and work for it.