Author: Charles Dittmeier

Covid Changes

This big grey building housed a karaoke center pre-Covid-19. Then when the government closed all such gathering places, they reopened as restaurants–at least officially. Stories keep appearing in the papers of the music still going on inside. This place placed the name “LA Restaurant” over the entranceway and hung up a sign of various dishes, and, voila, a restaurant! During the morning marketing time, vendors fill the street in front of the hall.

Post Lockdown

Phnom Penh’s approach to vaccination is to inoculate whole neighborhoods at a time. Right now the government is focusing on Boeung Tum Pun. This is a sign announcing the injections at Wat Sansam Kosal.
Inside the wat lots of motorcycles await their newly vaccinated owners. Cambodia isn’t good at organizing events and movements of people but they have done a good job with the vaccinations.

Going…but not away

Today the Cambodia Mission Team honored Maria Montello at the end of her contract with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. Maria is finishing nine years with MKLM but she is not leaving Cambodia so we will still see her around!

Post Lockdown

The graph above, from VOD, indicates that all is not well with the Cambodian government’s efforts to slow down the spread of Covid-19 in the kingdom.

On the other hand, the government has made some good moves. Within ASEAN, Cambodia has vaccinated more people than any other country except Singapore. And Cambodia has from the start included us foreigners living here in their vaccination plans. In this picture a member of our English Catholic Community gets his second injection.

Repair Shop

This is a little bag repair shop on the sidewalk on the corner near the old DDP office. I used to go here to get the straps sewn back on my backpack or get the zippers replaced. Now, though, he’s gone, probably because of the pandemic.