Author: Charles Dittmeier

Remote Doctoring

A few days ago I needed to consult with a dermatologist about a lesion I could feel in my hair on the back of my head. When I arrived at the doctor’s office, I found that he had a microphone and speaker attached to the outside of his glass door so that he could speak with the patients without their coming inside the office. Here a mother with a child speaks to the doctor who is not really visible through the Christmas decorations still on his glass door from nine months ago. I was allowed to come into the office but only into the waiting room where he checked my head. He was being super cautious about Covid-19.

Work day at the office

Most of our staff are working most of the time from home but the Education Project and Sign Language Project staff are at the Deaf Development Programme at least one or two days a week to make videos. Some of the videos are for our education students at home and some are for public announcements about the Covid-19 situation. The videos get posted on DDP’s Facebook pages.

Rice Donation

Here are Soknym, the DDP Program Manager, and Fr. Charlie at the Ministry of Social Affairs today where we handed over a ton of rice to the ministry for distribution to people in Covid-19 “red zones” where they are not allowed even to leave their houses to get food. There the government delivers rice to the houses every day or two. That is the rice behind us. I thought a ton of rice would make a bigger pile!

Herd Immunity?

Prime Minister Hun Sen addressing the Global Summit on Covid-19 this week.

In his remarks to the Global Summit on Covid-19 this week, Prime Minister Hun Sen noted that Cambodia has achieved the vaccination of 79.1% of the total population of Cambodia. Around 80% is considered the threshold for herd immunity, but we’re still counting between 600 to 700 new infections per day. That’s a really bad figure for us and makes us wonder if we have herd immunity or not? Or is it just the presence of the Delta variant?

What do you do when it rains?

This is the rainy season in Cambodia and almost every afternoon we get downpours like this. The people you see are those prepared for rain–except the guy at the right riding pillion without a poncho.
And then there are those who forgot their rain ponchos or just couldn’t be bothered and they do what is perfectly acceptable in Cambodia—you pull into a gas station with a cover and you wait out the rain. You block the pumps but no one seems to care. The heavier the rain the more people are jammed into the protected area.

Wiring in Cambodia

When there is only one electrical outlet in a room and when that outlet is located at eye level on the wall, there is a need for a LOT of extension cords.

Here is a 30-foot extension for the fan at the other end of the room.
This extension cord is relatively short and only feeds the refrigerator.
In the same room, this cord is for a microwave and the toaster.
Because there are no outlets outside where the guards spend their time, an extension runs from this outlet through the louvers near the ceiling.

Wiring in Cambodia

It’s a bit of a mystery why light switches and AC outlets in Cambodia are placed where they are. Most of the switch boxes are placed at shoulder level. I suspect that is simply a matter of convenience. Houses in Cambodia in the city–where they have electricity–are built of concrete with tile walls. It’s probably just easier to mount a switch receptacle in the concrete wall rather than cut and trim tiles to mount the box at a more useful level.

There is one receptacle on a wall at a more practical level and that is in the living room. Maybe it was intended that the owners would have a television nearby like we do? (Ours is not plugged in because we don’t yet have a cable connection.)



The oddest outlet placement in our new house is in my second room which right now is being used for storage until I can unpack some of the things we moved. This photo is from the doorway of the room. Note the filing cabinets.









The light switch for the room and the only AC outlet is in the rear corner of the room, near the floor! Unfortunately because of the bulk of the filing cabinets, the light switch is even more inaccessible than usual.