Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world
We moved our office to a new site last week (I’ll be starting a series of photos about that tomorrow) and today we got a surprise at the new site when the main waterline from the street broke. It took us a long time to find and dig up the cutoff valve and then it wouldn’t work so we plugged the incoming pipe with a cap held on by a brick and the concrete buttress until Sokly our director could run out and get a piece of replacement pipe and get it connected. Well done, Sokly!
Last week we celebrated graduations for our Year 2 students in Phnom Penh and Kampong Cham and Kampot Provinces. Click here to see the graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh.
Recently DDP was contacted by a local station’s producer who wanted to do a short segment on DDP and its work. Today he came to interview a couple of our staff and one of the deaf students. We hope to see the results on air in a few days!
This is the beginning of a new section to chronicle the moving of the DDP offices to the former Seedling of Hope grounds. Click here to go to the new home page for this section.
Today Jonathan Hooker (black shirt), a really fine advisor to the deaf program at Krousar Thmey, came to say goodbye to us at DDP as he finishes his volunteer term. Jonathan has been instrumental in linking Krousar Thmey and the Deaf Development Programme and in arranging financing and keeping our sign language committee functioning. His replacement will be Juliet who came with him today. On the right is Keat Sokly, the co-director of DDP.
Today was Cambodia’s official celebration of the International Day for People with Disabilities. The UN-designated day was 3 December but the government here transferred the celebration to today. The annual event is rather a charade. No person with a disability spoke or had any role in the planning or enacting of the celebration. No person with a disability was even on the stage except for Mr. Veasna, in a wheelchair, who is head of the National Center for People with Disabilities. We were required to be in the hall 1.5 to 2 hours before the starting point, the deputy prime minister spoke for 1.5 hours, they gave $1.25 to each person with a disability, and that was it.
Friday morning I was at the conference and then in the afternoon I went back to Manila and then caught a 6:00 AM plane back to Phnom Penh. Click here for some photos from the day.
Today was spent away from the Maryridge center, on a tour to the small town of Taal that is full of Spanish and Filipino history. Click here to see where we went during the day.
This was the first working day for the Asian Deaf Catholic Conference. Click here for photos from the day.
Actually today was the main travel day for most of the group. They gathered in Manila and then took buses to the Maryridge retreat center in Tagaytay City southeast of Manila. Click here to see today’s activities.