Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world
Today was a great day of engaging with colleagues and friends! The morning started off with a breakfast meeting with Colin Allen, the former president of the World Federation of the Deaf, who is now training DDP staff for the Deaf Leadership Training Project.
Today, Monday, was my first full work day in Phnom Penh and I spent most of it at DDP, the Deaf Development Programme. It was wonderful to see the students and staff again and we all had a grand reunion.
Then we just talked for a while as we were catching up on each other’s lives. We were lucky we could be in the open dining area because the temperature was 101 degrees,
When I left Cambodia last August, I was discussing with Caritas Cambodia, our new parent NGO, about funding for the Deaf Development Programme. But then the border war between Thailand and Cambodia erupted, and Caritas Cambodia went to the border to set up tent housing for displaced people and provide them with food, water, toilets, and other supplies. Our discussions with Caritas were suspended. Now I am heading back to Phnom Penh to resume our discussions. I just flew from Louisville and am in Denver, my first stop on the way. Here at the Denver airport you can see the Rocky Mountains rising on the horizon. It takes about 35 hours to fly from Louisville to Phnom Penh.
I am back in the United States now but it would have been much simpler and easier to retire in Asia. The main reasons I returned to Louisville are my brothers and sisters and cousins and my friends. Today Donna and Nancy took me to dinner for my birthday. They were students in my class in high school and both have become significant actors in the deaf world. And remained my friends. They are the types of friends it is very difficult to find in another country, another language, another culture where we have almost nothing in common.
Today was strictly a travel day. I had been checking the United app the last couple days and it said my flights were still on schedule so I did not re-schedule them as many others did for their flights because of the snow over much of the US. But although there were no snow or weather problems, the trip was “eventful.”
• Two sisters from Montreal and I left the Portland hotel at 3:30 AM. I arrived quite early for my 9:00 AM flight, but their offer of a ride saved me a $65 Uber fee.
• The flight to Chicago was smooth and I got a little sleep.
• When I went to the gate in Chicago for the flight to Louisville, there was a notice it was delayed 15 minutes. Then a second delay was announced, and then a third because the plane was in the maintenance hanger.
• Finally at 9:45 AM we boarded the plane.
• At 9:46 it was announced there would be a 20-minute delay for refueling.
• Then it was announced the plane would be de-iced. Another 20 minutes.
• After that we moved out to a taxiway. And stopped. After 20 minutes it was announced there was an instrument problem and we had to return to the gate. But we didn’t move.
• 25 minutes later it was reported we were waiting for a gate to be available and we finally moved to F4. The repairs took 20 minutes.
• Then it was announced we needed to refuel again.
• Finally 1.5 hours late we took off for Louisville and arrived at 9:25 PM. The original ETA was 5:37 PM.
It was plenty cold there but the streets had been plowed and it was no problem getting to Nazareth Home.
In the morning we had our last information session and then left right away for a national pilgrimage site, The Grotto on a Portland hilltop.
At the top of the cliff and the grotto is a beautiful forest of magnificent trees.
This has to be a brief post. I need to leave the hotel at 3:30 AM to get to the airport and I need to get some sleep. It could be a l-o-n-g journey back to Louisville with all the snow and air travel disruption.
At one of our announcement sessions, two representatives from the International Catholic Deaf Association gave information about the activities and programs of the ICDA,
Two other friends from the early days of deaf ministry are Bea (L) and Judith, Sisters of Providence who are ministers in Seattle. Here we are at a nearby mall food court for a supper to allow us to catch up.
We flew through Denver to get to Portland from Louisville, and then in Portland it was a 24-mile drive to the hotel where the gathering is being held. On the drive I noticed one sign that we are not in Kentucky: the trees here have no mistletoe while the barren trees around Louisville are full of the dark clumps of the seasonal parasite.
Registration for the gathering started at 4:00 PM and then in the evening we had a welcome reception. I was pleased to meet some of the pastoral workers I first met 50 and 60 years ago.
When I got back to Nazareth Home, one of the staff asked if I knew a deaf man had been admitted. I found out it was John. I first met him 50+ years ago when he was a student at the Kentucky School for the Deaf. He became an active member of our Catholic deaf group and I had the wedding ceremony for him and his wife. It was wonderful for both of us to see each other again.