Category: Deaf

People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world

Trip to Kampong Cham #4

Our day started with breakfast of pork and rice in this little streetside rice shop. Notice almost all cooking in Cambodia is done on charcoal braziers.

Here I am catching up with our host, a deaf man I have not seen for a long time.
Our DDP staff preparing some pictures of vegetables to be used for teaching new sign language.
Getting into the sign language lesson. These deaf people in the rural area have just been learning Cambodian Sign Language for a month or two.
Our classroom–a tarp we brought for sitting under a shelter attached to a stilt house.
After the sign language class, as we prepare to leave. The photocopies are to help the deaf people remember the signs they learned today.
A group shot of the deaf youth, our DDP staff, the deaf youth’s parents, and a few neighbors who wandered in to see what was going on.
Then it was time for a snack of a variety of fruits.

Trip to Kampong Cham #3

It took us about three hours to drive from Phnom Penh to Kampong Cham. When we arrived at the DDP office there, we had a short meeting. Sorphany (L) is interpreting for one of the deaf staff (R).
Then we traveled about a half hour outside of Kampong Cham to a village where thirteen young deaf people had gathered. They come together once a month for education and socialization, a chance to be with other deaf people and communicate. We met under a Khmer house which is in practice the main “room” for a Cambodian dwelling.
I talked with the deaf young people to encourage them to continue to meet and build up the deaf community–one of the goals of DDP–and then the DDP staff had a teaching session with them.
Back in Kampong Cham city, Soknym, our DDP director, and I had dinner by the night market along the Mekong River.
Then Soknym and I walked along the river toward the bridge. When I first started going to Kampong Cham there was no bridge and we would take a ferry to cross the Mekong.

Trip to Kampong Cham #2

I just got back from Kampong Cham and Tbong Khmum a little while ago and it’s late now so I will just show one picture from our first gathering yesterday and start a fuller post tomorrow.

Our first gathering was with thirteen young deaf adults a half hour’s drive from Kampong Cham city. It was delightful to be with them again.

Trip to Kampong Cham #1

Today Sau Soknym and took a van to Kampong Cham to some districts where DDP has set up local deaf groups with funding from the United Nations Development Program. It was quite interesting and I’ll put more about it here in the next day or so.

One interesting feature for me was the Virak Buntham bus company we used. I had never encountered them but they are the best I’ve seen, going everywhere in Cambodia and with really good vehicles and professional staff. I wish I had found them years ago! Here are two of their vans at our first rest stop.

Social Enterprise

PPC Bank–Phnom Penh

Social enterprises are businesses or commercial endeavors that differ from regular businesses in that the goal of the enterprise is not just to make money for the stockholders but to provide social assistance to some group like people with disabilities. In Phnom Penh the PPC Bank five years ago set up a social enterprise called Socials Coffee, a coffee shop right in their bank building, and they recruited, trained, and hired deaf people as employees.

Yesterday Socials Coffee celebrated their 5th anniversary which a fun gathering at the bank. Here one of the bank executives speaks about their vision and how it has worked.
Many of the deaf community came for the celebration.
It was impressive to see how many people came for the anniversary.
A group of the DDP staff got together for a photo.
The all our present and former students joined the photol

Thank you, Socials Coffee and PPC Bank!

Poor Workmanship

When the budget cuts took effect at the Deaf Development Programme, we put up a small office and classroom building to eliminate the high rent we were paying. The building was behind schedule but it turned out OK–except for the floor. The workmen did a terrible job, leaving us with a real mess.

The floor had large areas of discoloration, paint drippings, and even started to disintegrate in spots after a week or two. I kept thinking the contractor would come back and do something but it soon became apparent he considered that job finished.

[To be continued]

Street Surprise

This morning at 7:15 AM I was riding my bicycle home from mass with Mother Teresa’s sisters and heard someone calling me. It wasn’t my name because he is deaf but I stopped and it was Samath, our former staff artist who now is on the staff of the National Institute of Special Education. He was off today and was taking a 30 or 40-mile bicycle ride to Kandal Province to see some deaf friends. It was great to see him again! I didn’t know of his bicycle-riding interest.

Coming up….

For serious Christians, the upcoming Holy Week may be part of their thinking and planning. Palm Sunday is next Sunday and the beginning of the special and holy for belivers in Jesus. For most Cambodians, however, what is coming up and is on their minds is the Khmer New Year, April 13-15.

Here are some DDP students and a staff member from the Deaf Community Center practicing a traditional dance that uses dried coconut shells to make a clacking sound.

Homegrown

Life is simpler in Cambodia in many ways. Here a group of deaf students and their teacher really celebrate picking a jackfruit from a tree on the DDP grounds and just enjoying it together!

Farewell to the Barbers

The Deaf Development Programme offers two years of non-formal education and then a year of job training. For the boys our most successful skill to learn is barbering. Today three of our new barbers left DDP after three years with us.

The boys’ parents and some brothers and sisters came to pick them up, and we tried to really welcome them and help them to feel proud of their sons. Too many families with deaf children see their sons and daughters who can’t hear as problems, so today it was good for us to emphasize to these parents that now their sons can set up a barber shop in the provinces and contribute to the support of the family.
These parents rode in a tuk-tuk for three hours to reach Phnom Penh before lunch so we planned to feed them before their return journey.
It was good for the other students to be part of the celebration, too, to encourage them with a recognition of the success and accomplishment that can be theirs in another year or two.
Then it was time to load the barber chairs and mirrors and barber tools into tuk-tuks for the ride home. It was a crowded ride for the families.
This family was able to arrange for a tuk-tuk with a rack on top so they had more room inside for the people.