Author: Charles Dittmeier

Early Thanksgiving

Because we have a weekly Wednesday meeting for Maryknoll Cambodia and we have a cook on that day to help with the meal, we moved our Maryknoll Cambodia Thanksgiving celebration to today. In the past we would have 30-35 people attending. Today we had 13 who gathered after work. Here the group is participating in an opening Thanksgiving prayer.
There was plenty of good food that our members prepared. Here Sr. Ann and Bro. Tony take some of the chicken we prepared rather than turkey.
It was a pleasant evening with good food and old friends.

Tents for rich people

Our neighbor at the Maryknoll office is a four-star general near the top at the Ministry of Immigration. He just finished a two-month expansion and renovation of his house, and this weekend I found out that was so his daughter could get married there.

This is a view down the street from the Maryknoll office. Normally there is only a solid blank wall at the house but for the wedding this elaborate entrance way was created to their inner yard.

The tent companies are extremely resourceful and here they created an air conditioned room in the courtyard of the house. Here the workers are finishing the last preparations.

Weddings in a neighborhood are generally quite a nuisance, especially for the foreigners, but this general was quite considerate. He did not block the entire street with a tent and he did not put the usual loudspeakers out on the street to saturate the neighborhood with the chanting of the monks. [The Maryknoll office is the leftmost of the three shophouses behind the huge generator.]
The general’s family went to quite an expense for this wedding. These are portable toilets on the street for the dozens of cooks, cleaners, guards, drivers, and police assisting with the wedding. And the toilets are full size ceramic fixtures in air-conditioned stalls!

Human Rights for the Deaf 4

The training for judges and prosecutors working with people with disabilities was organized by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights (or UN Human Rights). It was held at the Angkor Paradise Hotel which seemed to have five or six UN and NGO meetings going on while still accommodating hordes of tourists come to see Angkor Wat.

The Angkor Paradise Hotel is a beautiful facility but much of its beauty comes from its (over) use of luxury woods native to Cambodia, one of its treasures.

The hotel lobby exhibited the characteristic Cambodia display of wooden furniture, figures, and objects.
The shops in the lobby were accented by massive wooden stools. Imagine the huge luxury trees sacrificed to provide these five incredibly heavy wooden decorations in the corridor.

Another section of the lobby.
Wooden chairs and a carving worth thousands of dollars decorate one of the passageways. These chairs are really unusual because they are padded! I have never seen that in 23 years here. For me one of the curses of Cambodia is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with these huge wooden chairs, designed for a Cambodian sense of beauty and not for comfort.
The Angkor Paradise Hotel has a beautiful pool.
And of course the pool furniture is more of the heavy wooden style.

Human Rights for the Deaf 3

Every time I go to Siem Reap I stay at the Bun Kao Guest House. Maryknoll has known their family for 25+ years and they are just delightful people. There are fancier and more modern places to stay but I really like their guest house.

The Bun Kao Guest House near Wat Bo.
A small porch on each floor looks down on the street.
The guest house has not starting serving meals again after Covid so I walked around the corner to this little restaurant and laundry run by a mother with two teenage children.

Human Rights for the Deaf 2

Unexpectedly the judicial officials for whom the training was set up failed to appear. The organizers had to do some creative revisions to the agenda but the program turned out well for the Organizations for Disabled People and officials from other ministries who attended.

This speaker (standing) was from the Disability Action Council of the Ministry of Social Affairs, one of the organizers of the training.
Staff of OPDs (Organizations of Persons with Disabilities) discussed some of the legislation and planning about people with disabilities in Cambodia.
The group discussions were characterized by significant awareness of the problems faced by people with disabilities when dealing with the law and by a genuine determination to address those issues.
Another speaker (in wheelchair) who is quite knowledgeable about the disability field.
This small group preferred to discuss standing up.

Human Rights for the Deaf

The Deaf Development Programme works closely with OHCHR, the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights, and today and tomorrow I am participating in a training session for judicial system leaders about the legal rights of people with disabilities.

The judges and prosecutors from several provinces have been invited to attend. I am speaking to them tomorrow about the difficulties that deaf people have with the police and judicial system.