Africa in Cambodia

The living in Southeast Asia is fairly cheap and easy. For that reason, the region – and Cambodia in particular – attracts a very interesting ex-pat crowd. There is the large and international NGO community (mainly from Western nations), working on everything from repairing cleft lips to promoting favorable policies for the large disabled population to more traditional development. There are those that work in business, from small restaurants to multinational companies (largely Chinese and Korean). There are the English teachers, usually young and carefree, mostly floating through their lives. There are the sketchy old men, often called “sexpats” who come to Cambodia in search of its seedier side. And then there are the Africans.

Every week Shanti and I see handful of young African men – it’s always men – wandering around Phnom Penh. How, we wonder, do these men end up in Cambodia? It seems an unlikely place for an African man to settle – it’s far from home and they don’t seem to fit into any of the aforementioned ex-pat molds. So where are they from and what are they doing in Cambodia?

It took a friendly encounter at Elsewhere’s famous (infamous?) first Friday (of the month) party to find out. As a group of us sat poolside on bamboo mats sipping wine and listening to Elsewhere’s perennially cool music, it unexpectedly started to drizzle. We sought shelter by the covered bar. Our friend Pat struck up a conversation with a Cameroonian named Julio – pronounce the ‘j’ – who was part of a larger group of men from Cameroon. As the conversation continued and Shanti and I joined, Julio revealed that he was a club soccer player, as were all of his friends. Though he was a recent arrival to Cambodia, he has been playing in Asia (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) for the past several years. In Cambodia, there is a limit of five foreigners for each club team, but the majority of those foreigners are from West Africa. So now we know. To celebrate, we’re going to cheer Julio on at the Olympic Stadium in two weeks.

Part II of Aziza coming soon...