Author: Charles Dittmeier

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.

Trouble above

When we came to the Deaf Development Programme this morning, we found that a large section of the ceiling had collapsed in our training room. We were planning to have a large meeting there Friday so I got on the phone to arrange for us to use a meeting room at the Catholic church near us.

CACD October Meeting

The Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development (CACD) had its quarterly meeting today to develop an action plan for the environmental framework we developed several months ago.
Part of the afternoon was working in four small groups according to the mission and purpose of our different NGOs.
Even during the break a lot of work gets done.
It is really edifying to attend the CACD meetings where so many really good people, genuinely committed and wanting to serve, come together to help Cambodia develop.

Musica Felice

Today Miwako Fujiwara and her Musica Felice presented their 13th charity concert at the Sofitel hotel with a full house.
Miwako is very creative and the second half of this concert was an interaction between the Musica Felice singers and a Phnom Penh theater group. There was a story line and instead of scene changes, different rooms and settings were projected for each “act” of the story.
These events bring together a lot of friends and colleagues. L-R: Cristina, a lay missioner from Italy; Cecelia, a lay missioner from Hong Kong; Sreytin, a deaf staff from the Deaf Development Programme;, and Julie, a Maryknoll lay missioner from the United States.

Get it on the street…

Just about everything can be bought from carts on the street in Phnom Penh: clothes, shoes, rain gear, snacks, drinks–you name it. Here a fruit seller offers a variety of in-season fruits. I sometimes am concerned about the hygiene level of sellers who peel, open, slice their fruit but it sure is convenient. I can’t imagine myself cutting up a pineapple at home.

NSSF

This week an official from the National Social Security Fund came to DDP to explain to our staff about the rather new social security program in Cambodia. He spend three hours explaining the fund with a sign language interpreter for the deaf staff. The beginning of a social security program is a BIG step forward for Cambodia.

Grab Food Delivery

This is one of the most dangerous people in Phnom Penh. During the Covid epidemic when people couldn’t go out, delivery services proliferated, especially food deliveries from restaurants. Because customers want their food hot and their drinks cold, these drivers are pressured to move fast. And they do. Regardless of laws, safety, traffic, common sense. They are always going too fast and weaving in and out of traffic, going through red lights, etc. They are a real menace on the streets.

Golden 42

This is a view from my new room in Phnom Penh, up on the 12th floor. It’s quite a switch from where I lived before! The golden building is the Golden 42, one of the first tall buildings in Cambodia–and still unfinished. It was started about 12 years ago and has gone through three different owners, none of whom could come up with the money to finish it. It now stands on one of the most commercially valuable corners in Cambodia, unfinished, empty, maybe even abandoned.