Maryknoll – Page 3 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

In the national park is an actual school basically built of rubbish. The Coconut School is a popular destination for tourists to the area and probably gets some of its operating funds from the visitors.

The story is that this school was established by a Japanese man without a lot of money who used what he could find and scavenge to provide learning for children in this remote are.

The setting of the school is quite a visual spectacle of creativity run wild.

Elephants made from old tires line the access road to the school. Notice the designs made from the caps of plastic bottles beneath the elephant.

On weekends the Rubbish Cafe is open to serve visitors.

MKLM Retreat Days

Addendum

Our MKLM retreat went well and was a good experience. There were also a few other interesting things that were part of that trip to Kirirom National Park.

The center where we stayed had three beautiful dogs, something like a sheepdog, and then there was this horse that I believe thinks he’s a dog. He just wanders around poking into everything like the dogs.

Day and night he just appears and wants to interact like a dog or cat.

The problem part of that is that not all our group appreciated all the animals, especially the BIG ones, and especially when the horse would come up on the porch and stand in front of the door and keep one of the women from getting in or out of her room. Hang Tran here in the photo made friends with the horse.

MKLM Retreat Days

The first part of this past week was spent at Kirirom National Park where the four of us members of Maryknoll Lay Missioners gathered for an annual retreat.

Each morning of the retreat was filled with discussion of ideas about community based on Pope Francis’s encyclical *Fratelli Tutti.* There were not many people present at the center so we used a convenient table located near the restaurant.

After our morning discussion, we had an activity to help us express and integrate what we had been talking about.

Kylene and Julie returning to the residence building where we had our rooms.

The meals were quite good and we had many settings to choose from as places to eat.

The final evening we had a simple celebration of the eucharist on the porch outside our rooms.

Kirirom Retreat / Sunday

Every year each MKLM group plans a retreat for its members. This year MKLM Cambodia arranged a retreat at a center at Kirirom National Park, a beautiful setting with hills (unusual in Cambodia) and trees.

Because I had the Sunday morning mass with the English Catholic Community, we left Phnom Penh at 2:00 PM for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Kirirom. Here Kylene and Julie, who made most of the arrangements, check in at the center which was quite nice.

Because of our late afternoon arrival, we planned no activities but just walked around to explore the center which had a real variety of activities and settings to investigate. First we located the restaurant, next to a pool, where we would eat all our meals.

Our rooms were in this building which is set in formal garden which would not be out of place in a European palace setting.

The center has a variety of accommodations, from tents and tree houses to hotel rooms and cabins like this one with its own kiosk on the lake’s edge.

CACD: 1st quarterly meeting

The Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development (CACD) is the social outreach arm of the Catholic Church of Phnom Penh. Maryknoll participates because of our projects with deafness, mental illness, and education. Today the topic was the role of technology and digitalization in serving the poor, and an amazing presentation was given by Mr. Sok Sopheakmonkol who demonstrated what artificial intelligence can do to assist NGOs like ours.

A second presentation about software and technology in monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning in NGOs was given by Mr. Art Kirby, the director of Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia.

It was quite and interesting and informative afternoon!

Lay Missioners Meeting

For more than 25 years, lay missioners from different countries who are working in Cambodia have gathered mostly monthly for friendship, socialization, and mutual support. Covid prevented meetings for two years but today the group met at the Maryknoll office to resume the monthly schedule.

Caritas from Korea (R) was a new member of the group joining us today. Here she chats with Julie.

Marie from Haiti (L), here talking to Kila at the break, was another new member.

Pilar from Spain (R) was the third newcomer to the group.

(L to R): Kylene, Marie, Pilar, and Cristina at the break.

Taiwan Trip-Thursday

Thursday and Friday were good days, with more presentations and reports and plans for the future. All in all it was a very good meeting, one of the best of my whole Maryknoll career.

Here are some final photos, of the building and grounds where we met at the Maryknoll house in Taichung.

The front of the Maryknoll center house.

Going around the side of the building to buildings in back.

The Maryknoll language school on the right and an office building on the left.

A glimpse of the Taichung neighborhood setting.

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Taiwan Trip-Wednesday (Part 4)

After visiting the bishop’s office, we walked down the street to another building where a program for migrants was explained. The diocese has so many programs helping people! It is really wonderful!