Author: Charles Dittmeier

Prepare the…Christmas celebrations

In the past week or two, church workers at St. Joseph Church where we have our English mass have been putting up platforms and other structures in preparation for Christmas.
Now the platform on the right is ready and will be the site first of a Christmas liturgy and then later a Christmas party for the neighborhood.

Strip Market

In the United States, strip malls are not uncommon–a long line of individual businesses set side-by-side along a block of busy street or highway, with room for parking left between the street and the stores.

Cambodia doesn’t have strip malls, but we have strip markets. Here is one section of street along the wall of a Buddhist wat (pagoda). It’s a narrow street and there is no sidewalk, but fruit and vegetable sellers managed to squeeze in boxes of their wares.

Service Area

You know those service areas on the Interstate highways in the United States, the areas where you can get gas, get something to eat, take a break? Well, right here in Phnom Penh….look at this–gasoline in soft drink bottles on the left, rice and some topping in the pan on the right. No bathroom, though….

Do Not Enter

In the first officially recorded community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in Cambodia, 40 infected persons have been identified by contact tracing. Two or three new infections are discovered every day during the past two weeks, and that has frightened Phnom Penh-ers. More people are wearing masks now and more shops have blocked access to their establishments.

Monks in Cambodia

Monk with begging bowl

One of the permanent features of Cambodia life and society is the presence of the Buddhist monks on the street, on the ferry boats, wherever. Every morning they make their rounds begging food and money for the people they care for and for their own meals. Click here to see some of the monks of the streets….

Remnant of Another Age

Probably most people passing by at street level don’t even know this tree exists. Its lower trunk is gnashed and scarred, its lower branches cut away, and it stands silently as a witness to humanity’s indifference to nature and beauty. Only its leafy crown proclaims its former glory and the long-gone stateliness of the colonial avenue that predated this now commercial strip.

More Goodbyes

Today at DDP we said goodbye to two of our staff, our social worker (left) and one of our houseparents. It is difficult to see good staff move on. And it is difficult to replace them!