Author: Charles Dittmeier

Two Language Schools

Julie Lawler (left, at table) is a new Maryknoll Lay Missioner who will work at the Deaf Development Programme. She is in class every day to learn the Khmer language but twice a week she is also learning Cambodian Sign Language! She has a head start because she already knows American Sign Language.

Lunar New Year 6

After you clean the house and buy new clothes and get your haircut; after you burn the incense and paper offerings; then it’s time to put out the food and drink offerings to really make the spirits happy.

Almost every shop has some sort of offerings on display…
A safety equipment store.
An Internet shop…but why do they have three offering tables?
Offerings outside a restaurant.
At a used car parts shop.
At a beauty salon.
Some shops put out really elaborate offerings. (I’ve noticed that the spirits really like beer. Or at least the people who put out the offerings think they do.)
This beauty salon has a rather humble offering.
This private house has a rather generous offering.
While this house’s offering is much more subdued.
This man goes all out at his house, making sure the spirits are pleased.

The End

Lunar New Year 5

There are always last-minutes purchases and preparations and many people were out on new year’s eve making everything ready.

One more decoration for the home or maybe a trinket for the kids….
These men finally found a traditional peach-blossom tree to put in the house.
This man opts for a few more fresh flowers….
This woman is selling the white jasmine blossoms on a stick or the small jasmine garlands which are important new year’s decoration.
And these people are getting the truck ready to head out to the province and leave the city hoopla behind.

Lunar New Year 4

Much of the world may be turning away from meat for health and environmental reasons, but for many developing countries eating meat is a sign of success, an indicator that the family is no longer too poor. And that is especially true at the Lunar New Year when roast pig is an almost essential item.

The proper day to buy the roast pig is the morning of the reunion dinner so all the farmers bring their offerings to town early in the day. There are big pigs and little pigs, a size to fit each family.
This man considers the roast pigs on offer on the street. If a whole pig is too much, there are slabs of roast pork in the cart on the right.
If roast pig doesn’t seem right this year, roast ducks and geese are available at this shop.
This woman’s streetside shop offers more roast ducks and some small pigs.

Hope…

Donald Trump won the presidency by fewer than 80,000 votes, spread out across 3 states. But more than 7 million new voters have turned 18 since that election. Make sure your friends and family are registered and get out to vote. (Numbers from Blue Future.)

Lunar New Year 3

Because the lunar year isn’t an actual holiday people won’t take quite as many days off as they will for the Khmer New Year. But they will all celebrate at home and at their work place. Here are some scenes from staff parties at various places of employment before they head home for the new year’s eve reunion dinner, a VERY important occasion.

Lanterns hung at one school.
A family new year’s eve meal in a machine shop.
Another group celebrating in an automobile repair shop.
Staff celebrating the new year at a company office.

Lunar New Year 2

Certain activities have to take place on certain days according to the Lunar New Year calendar. Today was the day for burning offerings for deceased ancestors to provide them with what they need in the afterlife and, more importantly, to keep them happy so they don’t cause problems for the family.

This woman and her daughter got a good fire going.
This man is burning things on a smaller scale and just getting ready to light the match.
This man demonstrates how it’s supposed to be done.
This man cleans the street in front of his house as burns the imitation money and other paper articles for his ancestors.
At this house, the whole family got together to burn their offerings.
This is the man who makes the receptacles for burning offerings but he doesn’t seem to be using any of them for his own ancestors.

Coming and going

When our Cambodia Maryknoll group returned from Hua Hin, Thailand last week, Marj Humphrey (L above) came with us. She is the Director of Mission for the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. Today was her last day with us and after joining us for our Wednesday meeting and mass and supper, she departed for New York.

Also with us tonight, for her first official meeting as a member of the Cambodia Mission Team, was Julie Lawler (R above). Her first meeting was something of an anti-climax since she has already started Khmer language school and is also learning Cambodian Sign Language for working with the deaf community here.

Different celebration of death

Today I went to the funeral of a colleague from the Philippines who died here. There aren’t many funerals in the Catholic churches in Cambodia because there aren’t many Catholics and because the Cambodian Catholics are mostly quite young and the foreign Catholics tend to be younger or robust middle age also. We don’t have a significant population of older foreigners living here. This was only the second or third time in twenty years that I have been at an actual funeral in a church with the body present. Most of the time I have funerals at the Buddhist wats (pagodas) where the body is to be cremated or else there is a simple ceremony at the morgue before a body is shipped to its home country for burial.