Visit to Kampong Cham

Bishop Anthony of Kampong Cham province has asked me to visit some deaf people in several villages there, so I went to the province on 3-4 February. Kampong Cham is two and a half hours up the Mekong River by road. See map.

Sr. Helen with villagers Sr. Helen (dark jacket) originally found the deaf children in the villages where she works as a catechist, and she was my guide. We traveled more than fifty miles on the back of motorcycles making the visit to four deaf families.

Village setting in rural Kampong Cham The villages where the deaf children live are perfect examples of rural Cambodia where not much has changed in the last fifty years. Many of the houses would have transistor radios, some would have televisions powered by car batteries, but the basic cycles of life are the same as they have been for centuries.

A deaf girl with her sisters and neighbor kids The deaf children we visited have never been to school at all. One of them was ready to go back to Phnom Penh with me that day (!) but the others were more reluctant about traveling beyond their village. The parents had varying degrees of hesitation, too, about their children going away to school.

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	Sr. Helen (dark jacket) originally found the deaf children in the villages where she works as a catechist, and she was my guide. We traveled more than fifty miles on the back of motorcycles making the visit to four deaf families.
	The villages where the deaf children live are perfect examples of rural Cambodia where not much has changed in the last fifty years. Many of the houses would have transistor radios, some would have televisions powered by car batteries, but the basic cycles of life are the same as they have been for centuries.
	The deaf children we visited have never been to school at all. One of them was ready to go back to Phnom Penh with me that day (!) but the others were more reluctant about traveling beyond their village. The parents had varying degrees of hesitation, too, about their children going away to school.