Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Coming from a German background and a family where Mom baked cakes, cookies, or pies every week, for me the cakes in Cambodia are a real disappointment. They are created for visual effect rather than good eating. Who needs play money, huge candles, and two Spidermen on a cake–and especially when the icing is like whipped lard?
A night time food stall–with an arriving customer!
Two government holidays fell back to back yesterday and today, and to keep our resident students occupied and interested, they took a ferry across the Mekong River yesterday and today worked together to cook a special holiday dish. Here they are this afternoon grinding, chopping, boiling, frying, and combining all sorts of yummy ingredients.
For thirty years, the Maryknoll community met every Wednesday for a meeting and a liturgy and a dinner together–and for celebrations for special events like birthdays. The Maryknoll NGO is no longer in Cambodia but some of those formed by Maryknoll’s long tradition of weekly meetings continue to gather each Wednesday.
Today was a birthday celebration for those born in May and we honored (L to R) Binh, Cristina, Kila, and Robert.
Last week I was handling English and French correspondence from the prime minister and the king as they sent condolences to our bishop.about the death of Pope Francis.
Today I was overseeing the pumping out of our DDP septic tank.
There are all sorts of mangoes just like there are many types of apples. I can’t tell them apart but these lower mangoes are distinctive because of their size. Look at the difference between the upper and lower ones!
If you like mangoes–my favorite fruit!–it’s a great time to be alive. We are at the peak of the mango season and they are everywhere. Mango trees appear on almost every household lot and right now many, many people have many, many mangoes. People are giving them away and dealers like this one above are selling a kilogram (2.2 lbs.) for 75ยข. Love it!
I haven’t seen a Tesla on the road here but saw this one in a dealer’s showroom recently.
Today I finished a meeting early and stopped in our DDP barbershop to look presentable again. The young deaf man on the left is a new barber trainee and he was a bit terrified to work on me, the boss! The trainer (R) was there, though, so he took on the challenge and did a good job. The worst part of the new barber trainees is that in their fear and caution, they are very slow!
This afternoon I was riding my bike home from a grocery run with a six-pack of Coke Light in the bike basket. I hit a bump in the street–not an uncommon experience in Phnom Penh–and one of the cans exploded, ripping open the whole side! Quite a surprise!