Category: Uncategorized

Actual Coronation Day

Today is the actual 20th anniversary of King Sihomani’s coronation in 2004.

This is the most frequent face of King Sihomani as seen by the Cambodian populace. He is always smiling the same tight-lipped smile. It is almost as if he had plastic surgery and cannot do anything except smile. But smiling is probably his most important responsibility as king. He has no legislative or jurisdictional power but is a symbol of the royal family and in that role he gives a human–smiling–face to an otherwise dour government.

FAD/DPF Visit (Day 5d)

After our home visits in the Kampong Cham area, we started our return journey to Phnom Penh. In the middle of the afternoon, we stopped at a roadside stall to get ears of roasted corn.
We made another stop as dusk fell at a famous wat along the highway so the people from Finland could see what the Buddhist wats are like.
This wat is in a beautiful setting around a lake.
Before it got too dark, we made a group photo.
To save some driving time, we took a ferry across the Mekong River. Here Sophy takes photos of a view that most of us almost never see.
The ferries are small, holding only 7 or 8 four-wheeled vehicles. And when the boat arrives at the destination, the vehicles need to back off the boat.

Deaf Week–Day 6

Today’s Deaf Week activity was making decorative paper bracelets. Most of the students were quite creative! And of course afterwards there were the usual photos!

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It’s coming along….

On the Easter weekend, the new church being constructed at St. Joseph Parish was opened to allow a few people to see the interior.

The main stairway leading up to the front doors opens into back portion of the nave of the church which has a lower ceiling to allow for offices and meeting rooms above.

Then the back half of the nave opens up to a high ceiling. The building is large but the seating will not be much greater than what is presently available in the hall in another building that is currently used for Sunday liturgies.

Been away too long…

I think I’ve been away from the US too long…. When I moved to this new place where I am living alone now, I bought a small refrigerator. Refrigerators should be rather simple but I can’t figure this one out.

What the heck is this door designed to hold? The large tall area on the right is not deep enough for a 1.25L Coke bottle and it seems the little restraining bar at the bottom is too low to keep soft drink bottles in place when the door closes.
And then there’s the vertical compartment on the left, where I have a jar of jam at the bottom. What is that compartment supposed to hold? Notice it’s got a moveable restraining thingy to hold something in. But what? Enlighten me at cdittmeier@gmail.com or +855 12 608 470 for WhatsApp or Telegram! Please!

Trip to Kampong Cham #1

Today Sau Soknym and took a van to Kampong Cham to some districts where DDP has set up local deaf groups with funding from the United Nations Development Program. It was quite interesting and I’ll put more about it here in the next day or so.

One interesting feature for me was the Virak Buntham bus company we used. I had never encountered them but they are the best I’ve seen, going everywhere in Cambodia and with really good vehicles and professional staff. I wish I had found them years ago! Here are two of their vans at our first rest stop.

Apologies

Ugh… For the post immediately below this one, I was trying a new feature in WordPress that called for media and text together. In the editing stage, it looked NOTHING like the final published result with such large type! That’s the last time I’ll use that!