Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
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.
At first I thought this was a family of three, and then noticed the two adults are women. And THEN noticed there’s a second munchkin squeezed between the two women. At least three out of four have their helmets on.
Today I got a third–and I hope, final–truckload of stuff moved to my new house. I don’t know where I’m going to put it. I think these boxes–and eleven others–are going to be sitting around the walls of my room–and out on my little balcony–for months as I go through the stuff to see what will go back to Kentucky, what goes to Maryknoll archives, what gets tossed. I wish we had curbs here so I could put stuff out for people to take.
Every two months I write a column about life and ministry in Cambodia for The Record, the newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. The latest column mentioned Pchum Ben, the Buddhist festival of the dead that we are experiencing this week.
For some reason one of the paragraphs of the published version of the article appears to be corrupted so rather than give the link to the newspaper, I’m trying to make a link that will send you my original copy I sent to The Record. See if you can click on this link below:
A generous donor who helps the Deaf Development Programme also has several apartments in Phnom Penh as an investment. He told me he has a one-bedroom unit that has been empty for a year because people want more rooms, and he suggested that I move in for free. Then I could use the money I was paying for rent elsewhere to support the deaf program.
I’ve still got a lot of unpacking to after I moved to his apartment today. This place is a definite upgrade! I have never lived in such nice housing!
Now to figure out where to put everything.
Does this remind you of Ace Hardware back in the day? …Nah, not me either.
That’s a rather big load for a rather small moto!
One photo target of many tourists to Phnom Penh is the mass of overhead wires above the city streets–and on the sidewalks, as in this photo. There are hundreds of wires stretching along almost every thoroughfare–and probably half of them are dead. New wires go up constantly. Old wires are rarely taken down. They’re removed only when they break and dangle in the streets. Notice the scars on the tree where limbs were amputated to make room for wires rather than running the wires in a less obtrusive fashion.
One characteristic of houses in the cities in Cambodia is that all the windows and doors are barred. On the left above is my front door. On top is the kitchen. The lower right corner is in my bedroom. None of the window bars or grills open. If there is a fire and the door is blocked, it’s bad news for the room occupants.