Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Happenings in the Maryknoll world, especially in the Cambodia Mission Team.
Maryknoll is moving to a different office building in August and today we went through the house with the landlords to check for need repairs and changes. Here Sr. Regina calculates whether our dining room table will fit into this space. It does.
Maryknoll Cambodia has been looking for another office. One shophouse we checked out today had this audio room on the second floor. All Cambodian buildings in the cities are made of concrete and terrazzo floors, and the noise level and echoes are terrible. Apparently a previous audiophile occupant of this house fitted out this small room with carpeting (unheard of in Cambodia) and padded walls to create a quiet listening environment for a discerning ear. First time I’ve seen anything like that in Cambodia.
Maryknoll Cambodia (the official name of our Maryknoll presence in Cambodia) is considering a move to a new, smaller office.
We have identified 25+ shophouses that are available in our area but most are not the right size or the right price. One especially promising one we visited this morning. Up on the third floor it had this strange open place at the rear, next to the stairs going to the open roof area. Since most Cambodian houses are built without closets, this flat space is probably a storage area.
Three days ago the members of Maryknoll Cambodia went to get vaccinated against Covid-19. It was a relatively simple event although it took a long wait and a lot of confusion to get to this day. Click here to see the process. #CatholicCares
Pope Francis has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, calling it a lifesaving, ethical obligation and saying the refusal to be vaccinated is suicidal. A coalition of Catholic groups, including Maryknoll, support the pope’s emphasis on being vaccinated. And just this morning, the Maryknoll Cambodia community received their first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine. https://catholiccares.org/resources #CatholicCares
The main reason for this website is to help people get a sense of what Cambodia and mission is like. You will never get that full sense until you’ve been here a while but seeing pictures–and especially videos–can give a good feel for daily life in the Kingdom of Wonder.
I’ve also been experimenting with videos for church work in this time of pandemic and thought maybe I could combine these two interests in some short videos that I might make occasionally.
Here is a first test video, just showing the front part of our house which is the Maryknoll office and home for Fr. Kevin Conroy and me.
Well…. After trying to upload the video I found out this may not work as well as I had hoped. The maximum length is about one minute and here in Phnom Penh it plays in a jerky fashion. Maybe you will have better Internet connections where you are. This project needs more work!
