Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world
This evening three of us retired priests drove south to Bardstown, Kentucky to the St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral where we had dinner with Fr. Randy Hubbard, the pastor there. Randy followed me as the priest with the Catholic deaf ministry in our archdiocese.
Almost fifty years ago, Mass of the Air began broadcasting on Louisville television to allow home-bound people to have at least limited access to Sunday mass. Many volunteers have helped to provide this service, including sign language interpreters and prompters. Above, Nancy Reynolds (L) is signing American Sign Language and Peg Darcy is prompting her to make sure the communications are clear and understandable. Both Nancy and Peg have been part of the Catholic deaf community for more than 40 years, serving our deaf brothers and sisters in many ways.
Today Charlie’s Angels came to Nazareth Home for a visit. These are women who decades ago began working with deaf people, especially in sign language interpreting. Several of them were students in classes I taught at Angela Merici High School. There were five Angels originally but two have returned to heaven.
Today at the 10:30 AM mass we had a farewell for Charlie. This was his last mass with the English Catholic Community in Phnom Penh before returning to the United States tomorrow.
Today four of the interpreters and staff of DDP invited me to lunch to say goodbye. It was really good to catch up with them–and they also gave me the pictured silk shirt!
Our DDP students learned a traditional Cambodian dance. It is extra difficult for them to dance without the music.
Then I had a chance speak of my 25 years at DDP.
The deaf people were invited to speak and Samath spoke of the very early days of the Deaf Development Programme.
Saphaek from the UN Human Rights office spoke about working with DDP.
Then it was time to eat.
We had a super farewell for me today at DDP. About 100 people came, many of them deaf people I hadn’t seen for years after they left our program.
When I first arrived, staff were working preparing lunch for everyone, to be served Khmer style after our program.
Today a family from Japan visited DDP. The Cambodian wife is deaf and was our student until graduation in 2016. Soon after she married her Japanese deaf husband and moved there. Now with two hearing children, they came to visit and it was really heart-warming to see her and her family so happy. A DDP success story!
Today I spent the day in my borrowed apartment in Wanchai in downtown Hong Kong. Typhoon Wipha arrived early last night and the #3 wind warning went up. When I woke up this morning, the #8 warning was hoisted and that changed to #10 at 9:30 AM. #10 indicates the strongest winds, above 70 MPH.
The #10 signal has been hoisted only 4 times in the last 13 years but the center of Typhoon Wipha passed just 30 miles south of the city so the effects were strong here. Gusts of 120 MPH were recorded.
I used to like typhoons when I lived in Hong Kong. Work places and schools were closed and it was like having a snow day when I was in elementary school. Today I ventured out when #10 was raised just for the experience and it wasn’t much. There was little rain at that time and even the winds were not that bad. One little palm tree was felled on the street near us but there aren’t many trees in the concrete and asphalt city so it was not a good reflection of the damage that was done elsewhere in the 80% of the colony that is forested hills.
Perhaps the greatest sign that something was different today were the empty streets. Hong Kong is densely populated and at 2:00 PM the streets were EMPTY.
