Author: Charles Dittmeier

Not a promising future…

Phnom Penh was once known as a beautiful colonial city with wide tree-shaded boulevards but most of that environment has been sacrificed to “progress,” more buildings, more people, and more traffic. Here is a surviving tree, minus many limbs but still leafy, but how long can it last growing up from a little square hole in the concrete?
50 to 75 years ago, this stump was one of the beautiful trees on a boulevard. Now it’s just a remnant, a reminder–for those who even see it–of what once was.

Launch of campaign to prevent violence against women

Today eleven DDP staff and members of the deaf community participated in the national launch of a campaign to protect women against violence. Here our DDP interpreter conveys the message of one of the early speakers.
Probably more than 500 persons attended the launch. There would have been more but the chairs were socially distanced because of the coronavirus. Another anti-COVID-19 measure: at the break it was interesting that the hotel did not supply the usual buffet of snacks and pastries and fruit, but instead prepared a foam box full of snacks for each individual. They were quite generous in the quantity of snacks in each box so it probably cost the organizers more than the usual reception.
After the morning-long ceremony, many of the DDP staff posed for a picture.

CACD Meeting

The Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development (CACD) meets quarterly, and today the meeting was at the Caritas Cambodia national training center in Takhmau. About 45 people from various Catholic NGOs and agencies attended.
At the end of the meeting, Bishop Olivier gave gifts of appreciation to those who served last year on the CACD steering committee.

Starting again

Yesterday the Education Project of the Deaf Development Programme resumed its classroom teaching after the most recent suspension for a month or two.
The power went off for quite an extended period today so we moved the students outside to a porch where they were working on an illustrated version of the classroom rules they have been discussing as part of the restart.

Musica Felice

Ms. Miwako Fujiwara is the founder and director of the now quite well-known musical group, Musica Felice. Several times a year they perform in charity concerts that are always well received. This past weekend we were treated to their latest production which had been delayed several months because of COVID-19 restrictions. It was well worth the wait!

The whole Musica Felice ensemble with Miwako as pianist.
Some of the women singing some Christmas-themed music
for the last time this season.
These two young blind men, from one of the groups benefited by the concert, really stole the show with their strong vocal duets.