Every year in September there is a celebration of Deaf Day in countries around the world, or Deaf Week as here in Cambodia. Today was our big celebration to climax Deaf Week. I couldn’t arrive till almost two o’clock because of the morning mass and because of a trip to the morgue for a parishioner who died yesterday. When I did arrive, I was totally surprised because they turned the celebration into one honoring me. Our Deaf Development Programme started in 1997 so this is our twentieth anniversary. 1997 was also the first time I came to Cambodia so my coming was included in the anniversary celebration. And because this is the “birthday” of DDP, it became a birthday celebration for me, too, notwithstanding that I was born in February. All the different celebrations got conflated together but the bottom line is that they had made a banner wishing me all the Buddhist blessings and they gave me a variety of gifts they had made. It was a genuine surprise for me and much appreciated. Come back to see more about Deaf Day in Cambodia.
On Day 2 of the visit of the funders from the Siloam Center for the Blind, their team went with DDP staff to visit three deaf youth in Kampot Province who were raising pigs and chickens and ducks. 
One of the funders of DDP is the Siloam Center for the Blind in Korea. This week they came to Phnom Penh to visit the Deaf Development Programme and to meet the beneficiaries of their funding. 
Dr. Felix Tse is a professor and administrator of a sign language linguistics program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She came to Phnom Penh to explain the program and invite the linguistics department of the Royal University of Phnom Penh to establish a formal cooperation in sign language research. Felix and Charlie have known each other for about twenty years. Charlie studied Cantonese language at CUHK a long time ago. 
Today Keat Sokly, co-director at DDP, and I met Ms. Felix Yim Binh Sze as she arrived from Hong Kong where she is a professor in sign language linguistics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Over dinner we discussed with Felix some ideas about CUHK starting a partnership with a local university to help sign language linguistics develop in Cambodia.
Before the deaf people and their families returned to their traditional villages to celebrate with their elders there, the Deaf Community Center had a celebration for all the deaf community the Sunday before the New Year exodus began. 