Author: Charles Dittmeier

Ash Wednesday 2025

Today we had our first Ash Wednesday service at the St. Jude Thaddeus School site. It was something of a test run to see how many people wanted to come, could find St. Jude School, and would brave the heat after a 97ºF afternoon. They came. We used basically every chair the school had and people were still standing.

In previous years we had two Ash Wednesday services, on opposite sides of town, but this year just the one gathering and it was crowded.

I told the priest to keep the homily short and he did.

Around the world, Ash Wednesday is one of the most well attended religious services and we certainly had an outpouring for our English Catholic Community.

Just follow the….?

None of these options are very good, but it seems the workmen who put down the yellow tactile tiles to guide blind people:
• had no idea what the yellow tiles are used for, OR,
• they knew the purpose of the special tiles but no one told them to go around the trees, OR,
• they just didn’t care that they were making life worse for blind people.

A surprise…

My birthday was last Saturday, a week ago, when I was in Bangkok to get a new visa. I didn’t think much about my birthday then and certainly not much since then, but today at the end of mass some of the parishioners surprised me with a cake!

DLTP Graduation

26 February was the official end of Phase 4 of the Deaf Leadership Training Program and there was a graduation celebration and lunch together for the DLTP team and their trainees and the DDP management team.

Early in the morning, at DDP, the DLTP team prepared materials for the end of this phase of their training.

At a restaurant, Colin Allen, the advisor/trainer for DLTP, welcomed all the participants and noted their commitment and work that has brought them to this point.
Then after the DLTP participants received their certificates, there was a group photo.

No rope, please…

Today this sign was up in front of one of the six elevators in the building where I live. I really hope they are using steel cables rather than ropes. It is interesting to see the various different words U.S. English and other Englishes use for the same reality.

Life in Cambodia

This is an illustration of what I like best about Cambodia–and what I am going to miss most when I leave. Here a technician from the apartment where I live and his partner fix a shower hose that stopped working. I sent a message this morning about the problem and suggested a time when I would be home, and immediately got a response that Vuthy and his partner would be there then. And I love the way they work. In the US, if I couldn’t fix it myself and had to call someone to work on it, it would take several days to get someone to the house, cost me $25/$50/$75 when he walks in the door, and then he would just pull out a new hose and charge me another $25 or $50 for it. Vuthy got out his channel-locks and needle-nosed pliers, took the hose apart, repaired it, and fifteen minutes later the water was back on. And no charge. I’ll miss all that.

ANM Day 5 (February 21) #2

Today’s meeting focused on finalizing a work plan for 2026-2029. Here Vanna offers his comments.
We have frequent breaks for the benefit of the sign language interpreters. Interpreting is very fatiguing because of the concentration required. Here Julie Lawler talks with the DLTP deaf staff during a break.
At the afternoon break, the students brought out a birthday cake and fruit they had prepared for me for my birthday tomorrow. The best part of my job is interacting with the students but I don’t have much opportunity for that now.
After the cake, I said goodbye to Katarina and Rebecca and then headed for the airport. the Phnom Penh traffic is terrible now and it took an hour to go the four or five miles. These are some meat vendors along one of the major streets near the airport.