Author: Charles Dittmeier

Moving Time–Truck it

Today I moved all my stuff from Street 410, from the Maryknoll office building which we are closing, to a flat in the Boeung Tum Pun area. I had way too much stuff that had to be moved but our small crew got it moved within five hours. Now it is going to take WAY more time than that to sort it all out and find a new place for it in my new home.

Sharing expertise

Today a group of speech therapists from the UK visited the Caritas Deaf Development Programme to learn about deaf people in Cambodia and what DDP does. DDP uses only sign language and has no oral training and so there are few intersections between the work of the two NGOs but it was good to talk and learn.

Actual Coronation Day

Today is the actual 20th anniversary of King Sihomani’s coronation in 2004.

This is the most frequent face of King Sihomani as seen by the Cambodian populace. He is always smiling the same tight-lipped smile. It is almost as if he had plastic surgery and cannot do anything except smile. But smiling is probably his most important responsibility as king. He has no legislative or jurisdictional power but is a symbol of the royal family and in that role he gives a human–smiling–face to an otherwise dour government.

Coronation Day

Tomorrow is a public holiday to celebrate the king’s coronation day and tonight there was a fireworks display to note the occasion. This is a view from the 33rd floor of an apartment building. The fireworks are launched from a barge on the Mekong River.

Phnom Penh Choral Ensemble

Every year the Phnom Penh Choral Ensemble presents a charity concert and they staged an exciting performance this evening at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Here the ensemble sings the Cambodian national anthem to begin the show.
Marie Cammal is the founder and director of Sok Sabay Association, an NGO caring for children at risk of abuse and exploitation. Philip is a volunteer from the UK, attending with two of the Sok Sabay students.
The concert was quite colorful and so was the music with a basic theme of Broadway tunes.

Different Every Week

We’re still getting used to our new mass center at St. Jude Thaddeus School in Phnom Penh. We use their multi-purpose room (a former warehouse) for masses on Saturdays. They keep changing the room around each week. They have some wooden risers we use for a platform for the altar and always before they were covered in worn red carpeting and were of different heights. Tonight they were covered in green and are all the same height, a big improvement.