Author: Charles Dittmeier

Two weeks and counting…

Two weeks and a day ago, we celebrated the Lunar New Year. Lots and lots of chrysanthemums were sold to decorate homes and businesses. And apparently a lot of others didn’t get sold. Yesterday I passed these seemingly abandoned flower pots, wilting reminders of the celebration of the Year of the Tiger.

“Where has all the water gone?”

Much of Cambodia is flat as a pancake–and floods every year. That is why the traditional houses are built on stilts. Large areas of the country are boeungs (lakes) which collect excess water in rainy periods and prevent some of the flooding. The boeungs around Phnom Penh also serve as aquaculture sites, like the one above, where vegetables are grown in the shallow water. But now, under relentless pressure from developers and their friends in government, the boeungs are being filled in, mostly to build factories and residence compounds. Above you can see the brown embankment with a road on top that has resulted when this boeung was partially filled to develop the housing compounds in the background. The rest of the boeung will likely be gone in a few short years. The developers make millions of dollars; the poor people are dispossessed and pushed out; and Phnom Penh floods because there’s no place now for the excess water to go.

KOMISO Clinic #2

On February 8 (scroll back to that date for more pictures) Bishop Olivier blessed the new medical clinic of the Korean Mission Society. In the pictures above he ceremonially cuts the ribbon to open the new building and all the guests went in to see the new facility which is quite nice. Then Bishop Olivier went through the building to sprinkle and bless the different departments with holy water.

The building behind the clinic is a residence for Korean doctors, nurses, and medical staff who will come to work in the clinic along with local medical professionals. In Cambodia, the top floor is often covered and left open, as a meeting place and activity area but also to provide a layer of open air insulation from the heat of the sun.

Watch what they’re doing…

Everybody in the city has to have a little business. If you have a regular, formal office job, you still have a little business enterprise on the side. Every little bit helps the family survive. These two men, one maybe retired from another job, have little carts for working on watches–changing batteries, replacing watchbands, maybe even a simple repair. An important part of this endeavor is finding where you can keep your cart overnight and finding a good place to set up on the street.

Musica Felice Donation

Three weeks ago Musica Felice held a benefit concert for the Deaf Development Programme, and today Ms. Miwako Fujiwara came to present the money DDP was to receive from the event. Miwako handed over $5,100, more than she initially announced to us. That will really help us for the coming year in which we will need to make up a $30,000 deficit. Thank you, Miwako, and Musica Felice!

It’s a new era…

When I first came to Cambodia more than twenty years ago, there were no used washing machines or used refrigerators. There WERE NO washing machines and very few refrigerators. People didn’t have the money to buy them, they weren’t sold here, and electricity was very expensive (it still is!). But today it’s common to see used appliances for sale in front of appliance shops.

Used refrigerators
Used washers. Dryers are still not commonly sold here.

Processed meats

In some ways Cambodian eating is quite healthy: people going to the market each day to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, not eating a lot western-style junk food. But there are also less healthy parts of the local cuisine, such as this processed meat cart which has hot dogs, sausages, blocks of probably every sort of meat available. They’re warmed by the sun while sitting on blocks of ice covered with cloth.