Charles Dittmeier – Page 22 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

FAD/DPF Visit (Day 2)

Today was the first full day of work, with meetings at the Deaf Development Programme office.

FAD/DPF Visit (Day 1)

Today a delegation from the Finnish Association of the Deaf (FAD) and the Disability Partnership Finland (DPF) arrived in Cambodia for a week-long monitoring visit.

This morning while I was having the mass for the English Catholic Community, our brilliant management team (Soknym, Julie, and Sophy) went to the airport to meet six travelers from Finland.

After their arrival at their hotel, five of the six in the delegation met for more than two hours with Soknym and me and we discussed the general situation of deaf people here in Cambodia.

At first I thought this was a family of three, and then noticed the two adults are women. And THEN noticed there’s a second munchkin squeezed between the two women. At least three out of four have their helmets on.

Still moving…

Today I got a third–and I hope, final–truckload of stuff moved to my new house. I don’t know where I’m going to put it. I think these boxes–and eleven others–are going to be sitting around the walls of my room–and out on my little balcony–for months as I go through the stuff to see what will go back to Kentucky, what goes to Maryknoll archives, what gets tossed. I wish we had curbs here so I could put stuff out for people to take.

The right and duty to vote

Today I finally got my Kentucky ballot finished and tomorrow morning I will take it to the embassy and they will carry it to the US and drop it into the US postal system. That is a BIG help because Cambodia doesn’t have a functioning postal system. They have restarted sending mail outside the country (there is no incoming mail unless you have a post office box) but a letter to the U.S. takes an inordinate amount of time–and may never arrive–so a really important letter must go by courier (DHL, UPS) at $40 a pop.

Packing before moving….

I hope to get all of my furniture and belongings out of my old house this week and today I went there to pack up the remainder for transit. Assisting me were Maria (L) and Kila, members of the former Maryknoll Cambodia world. Maria grabbed as a keepsake an old wooden box Fr. John Barth had made in the days before filing cabinets in Cambodia.

October in Buddhist Cambodia

Every two months I write a column about life and ministry in Cambodia for The Record, the newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. The latest column mentioned Pchum Ben, the Buddhist festival of the dead that we are experiencing this week.

For some reason one of the paragraphs of the published version of the article appears to be corrupted so rather than give the link to the newspaper, I’m trying to make a link that will send you my original copy I sent to The Record. See if you can click on this link below:

The-Record-Article-32-Sep2024 Download

More Moving…

Last week I moved enough clothes and “stuff” so that I could live in the new house that I have. Today I went back to the old house and moved another truckload.

After loading the truck, the first stop was St. Elizabeth Center where we dropped off a wheelchair and walkers, and then we went to the Missionaries of Charity’s home for women in Cham Chao. There we left a hospital bed that had been given to our St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Then we went back to the old house and loaded up my stuff and took it to my new house.

The final stop of the morning was Fr. Kevin’s mental health project where we dropped off the remaining items in the truck.

Deaf Day at DAC

In recent years the Disability Action Council has celebrated their own Deaf Day, apart from the activities of the deaf community. This year it was the last of the Deaf Week events. At the DAC headquarters, several hundred deaf people–mostly students–were invited to a reception with an under-secretary of state for the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Pchum Ben 2

Some more photos of the pre-departure fun before the DDP students went home for the Pchum Ben holidays. The students were playing LOUD music and showing off dance moves they picked up from Tik-Tok.