Author: Charles Dittmeier

Everyone pitching in

On Sunday mornings, our English Catholic Community uses the same worship space as the Khmer community. The Khmer mass is at 8:00 AM and our mass is 10:30 AM, but the Khmer mass always go long so there is less than an hour between the masses. After their mass, a group of Khmer youth take up the mats they use for sitting on the floor and replace them with the red plastic chairs for us. After our mass, though, the youth are long gone so all of our congregation carry the chairs over to the side of the hall and stack them. Then someone comes and puts the mats back out for the 4:00 PM Khmer mass where again everyone sits on the floor. Notice that our English community have to take off their shoes because wearing shoes in a church or pagoda is a no-no for Cambodian religious people. (Have you ever gone barefoot to Sunday mass?)

Another departure

A couple weeks ago we celebrated a graduation for our education students and for a group of our job trainees. Today four of the job trainees finished their time at DDP and returned to their home provinces to set up their own barber shops.

The four barbers with the equipment supplied to them to set up their barber shops. They got barber chairs, the clippers and trimmers, and the hair washing chairs in the foreground.
This young man is packing up his supplies as the barber trainer and DDP staff speak with his mother.
Then it was time to load up vans and tuk-tuks for the ride home. We give the students bicycles to use while they are here and this man is taking that–and also an old barber chair we had thrown out (foreground).

Lunar New Year – 1

The Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) will be Saturday, 10 February 2024. There are a lot of people claiming some Chinese heritage in Cambodia and preparations preparing for the festival are appearing around Phnom Penh.

Some of the decorations already put up are definitely low key.

Been away too long…

I think I’ve been away from the US too long…. When I moved to this new place where I am living alone now, I bought a small refrigerator. Refrigerators should be rather simple but I can’t figure this one out.

What the heck is this door designed to hold? The large tall area on the right is not deep enough for a 1.25L Coke bottle and it seems the little restraining bar at the bottom is too low to keep soft drink bottles in place when the door closes.
And then there’s the vertical compartment on the left, where I have a jar of jam at the bottom. What is that compartment supposed to hold? Notice it’s got a moveable restraining thingy to hold something in. But what? Enlighten me at cdittmeier@gmail.com or +855 12 608 470 for WhatsApp or Telegram! Please!

Potable?

Earlier I marveled at how our former Maryknoll office manager put together piping and a pump to send water through a house he built–and where I now live. I was pleased when he added a new pump because it created greater water pressure–and also because it eliminated a plastic garbage container he was using as a water reservoir. Now for some reason he has brought back the reservoir.

I’m not so happy with that. The water system in Phnom Penh has won an award for purity so after quite a few years here, in my last house I was drinking water from the tap instead of buying bottle water. But now that the water goes through the green plastic container above I’ve had to switch back to purified water. Notice that the container has a large circular cover that doesn’t fit tightly and allows dirt, rat droppings, whatever, to get into the water. I’ll pass now on drinking it.

Maryknoll Sisters Farewell

Last weekend the Maryknoll Sisters officially made their exit from Cambodia, returning to the Sisters Center in Ossining, New York. For more than thirty years, Maryknoll Sisters did wonderful work in a variety of projects but the sisters here were starting to feel the years and their congregation does not have the new members to build up the sisters community here, so it was decided to end their presence here.

Sr. Ann Sherman, one of the last four Maryknoll Sisters in Cambodia, returned to New York in December. For the remaining three sisters, we had a special blessing ceremony at the end of the Saturday mass. Charlie led a blessing in which the whole congregation was asked to participate as we said goodbye to a fine group of women. In the photo (L to R) are Sr. Mary Little, Sr. Regina Pellicore, and Sr. Helene O’Sullivan. Sr. Regina will actually stay on another month or so to deal with the government requirements for terminating an International NGO in Cambodia.