Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Today was a special day, a chance to catch up with Mark Hebrank (c), a really good friend who was in Cambodia for nine years and was an active member of our English parish and served as a communion minister and part of the St. Vincent de Paul team. Now he is in Florida with Paul but is back to see friends and appreciate Cambodia for what may be the last time.
This is the house I live in St 53BT in the neighborhood called Boeung Tum Pun, in the unit on the far right. It’s four stories, and Christian university students from an indigenous tribe live on the top two floors. They get up there by a metal stairway coming from the right side of the covered entrance yard at ground level.
I have the ground floor and a second or mezzanine floor. Notice the building is one-room wide, what is called a pteah lveng in the local dialect. A building like this is built for one family, with a shop or restaurant or small business on the ground floor, but landlords block the inside stairways to upper floors and add the outside external stairs so they can house two or more families in the building.
I’m not much of a cook. Going to the seminary at age 14 put a real crimp in my culinary skills. For lunch every day I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple. For dinner, once a week I buy four or five servings of some dish at a rice street stall and eat the same thing every night for a week.
Occasionally, though, I might get curious and try something–if it’s simple enough. I love macaroni and cheese and heard that it was simple so I gave it a try this evening. My big problem: I don’t have a stove, just a microwave and a hot water kettle. I just heated some water, dropped the macaroni in for 8 or 9 minutes (not really cooking it like the box calls for), and it all turned out well and added a little fillip to my nightly offering from the rice stall.
This evening we had a farewell reception for U.S. Ambassador Patrick Murphy and his wife Kathleen. He has been an exceptional ambassador–his terms was extended twice–and the Khmer press is crediting his tenure for real improvements in Khmer-American relations.
After greeting everyone individually, the ambassador gave his prepared remarks and they were one of the best speeches I have heard in my entire life. He was so positive and affirming and came across as so sincere.
Fr. Kevin and I have known the ambassador through our contacts at mass and were invited to the reception. Standing next to me is the Ambassador to Timor Leste who was recently appointed as dean of the ambassadors. He too comes to our weekend masses.
I’m sorry for the week-long hiatus! The first part of this month has been crazy. Last Sunday I flew to Bangkok for my annual physical exam on Monday. They saw a spot on my lung and that required going back for more tests on Tuesday, but in the end the lung specialist said it’s probably an old infection and just check on it in a year.
Adding more complexity to the week was my seeming to have the flu while there and feeling miserable. That finally started turning around Wednesday morning and today (Thursday) I feel just about normal.
At BNH Hospital, I had to take the elevator to the 4th floor several times and noticed this admonishment on the elevator button panel, telling people not to bring durian fruit into the hospital. For those who don’t know, durian is a large Asian fruit with a thick prickly hull. It is noted for “Tastes like heaven, smells like hell,” and is also banned from all Asian airlines because of the sharp pungent odor.
More photos from the Khmer Times showing the simple traditional new year games enjoyed by the Cambodian people celebrating in their homeland villages.
We stopped our Wednesday gatherings of Maryknoll Cambodia when we closed the NGO, but many of us decided to continue to meet and tonight we had a gathering of nine of us who try to meet every week. Most of us were part of Maryknoll but we have others who are lay missioners on their own or with another group.
