Author: Charles Dittmeier

Getting ready

Our Saturday night mass for the English Catholic Community is held at the St. Jude Thaddeus School in Phnom Penh. Today I was there for a meeting on Friday afternoon and the students were setting up the chairs for us to use tomorrow evening. (Thank you!)

Receiving the give away…

Last night when Sambath and I arrived at the Deaf Development Programme, the hostel students were waiting to start supper and came over to help us unload–much appreciated!
This morning our DDP staff went through all that we had received to determine how all the different items could be used in our hostel program.

Give away….

Expat families are constantly coming and going in Phnom Penh. Navern is returning to the Philippines tomorrow and today she invited us to take a lot of her household goods for the Deaf Development Programme hostel.
Sambath is a tuk-tuk driver known to Maryknoll for more than twenty years. He knows us, knows where we want to go, and we know that we can totally trust him. And on top of that, he can pack whatever you have into his tuk-tuk.
With lots of rope and tape, Sambath managed to get more than I expected into his tuk-tuk–a smaller model than I remembered his having. Here he pads a large TV for a ride on the top rack.

Singapore Deaf Group Visit

A group from the deaf program of the Wesley Methodist Church in Singapore paid another visit to DDP today and offered a short workshop on the environment. Afterward they prepared several tables full of foods and drinks they offered to the DDP students.
Some of the DDP students examining the contents of their gift bags from the Singapore Deaf group.
Finally the Singapore group and the DDP management team met for lunch and a short discussion of future collaboration.

Priests Meeting

Today the Phnom Penh diocese had its quarterly meeting of all the priests.

Fr. Chatsirey made a point while explaining about the progress of the new church being built in St. Joseph Parish.
Later, before lunch, the group celebrated Bishop Olivier’s 16th anniversary as a bishop.

Recreating what he grew up with

Most of Phnom Penh’s population has been transplanted from the rural provinces to the capital city. The saying goes: “You can take the person out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the person.” There are many illustrations of that adage around Phnom Penh where the now city dwellers try to recreate the fields, the plants, the flowers the way it was “back then.”