Author: Charles Dittmeier

When you’re thirsty….

Just about anything you want to buy in Cambodia can be bought on the street–blue jeans, shoes, raincoat, underwear, coconuts, fried chicken, snails, drinks…. Here is a drink stand. The long poles sticking up out of the green bucket are stalks of sugarcane. They are run through a device like a washing machine wringer to squeeze out the juice. Really good!

New Church Progress

The furniture and equipment from the previous St. Jude Thaddeus School building has now been moved to the new site of the school. Currently it is held in what will be a multipurpose room while the classrooms are being completed.

Backpack safety

These two young women are wearing backpacks and doing it right. Too many people, especially women, are injured when thieves on other motorcycles drive up next to them and grab the strap of a bag or backpack. If it doesn’t break, they pull the person off the moto and still get away with the bag. The woman above on the right has the best protection–covering the backpack with her jacket. Wearing a backpack behind you, like the woman on the left, can be dangerous because it’s reachable, but this woman’s back is shielded by her companion.

Visitors

A group of us continue to meet on Wednesday evenings for a liturgy and then dinner together. Tonight we were joined by Rachel (L, seated) and her daughter Chenda (2R, standing). Rachel was a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Cambodia, arriving in the same group with Charlie Dittmeier in 2000.

Pineapple Season

Here where the weather is always basically the same, especially temperature-wise, the indication of the season of the year is often the appearance of a fruit. We don’t have baseball, basketball, football, etc., seasons. We don’t even have sports leagues like that. And the trees are always green and something is always flowering so you can check the roadside markets to see what they’re selling and you know what season it is.

Pineapples are here!

New Church

The new St. Joseph Church is getting more detail on the outside and getting ceilings and column decorations on the inside. Fr. Chatsirey is talking about being in the new building by Christmas.

Reunion

Today was a special day, a chance to catch up with Mark Hebrank (c), a really good friend who was in Cambodia for nine years and was an active member of our English parish and served as a communion minister and part of the St. Vincent de Paul team. Now he is in Florida with Paul but is back to see friends and appreciate Cambodia for what may be the last time.

It’s the rainy season

The rainy season starts in late May or early June. It seems to be starting a little later each year now. But it’s in full force already this year.

This is Street 53BT where I live in Phnom Penh. We occasionally get some water pooled up but today we had a prolonged heavy downpour and this water will be with us for a day or so. It was deep enough that my pedals were going in the water as I rode my bicycle through the flood.