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ANM stands for Annual Negotiations Meeting.
The Finnish Association of the Deaf funds our project to establish a national association of the deaf and also some community development activities. Here Sophary (standing, left) informs the group about the activities since last year in the Phnom Penh area.
At the break, Julie Lawler (L), a Maryknoll Lay Missioner working in the Education Project, speaks with Katarina. Her suitcase had still not arrived!
Next on the program was a report on community development in the Kampong Cham area, given by Solydem (L), the center manager there.
Every year (when there’s no Covid!), our project coordinator from the Finnish Association of the Deaf comes for a week of meetings to review the past year and plan and budget for the coming year. Today Katarina, from FAD, arrived in Phnom Penh–minus her luggage–and within two hours was leading an opening meeting with us at the DDP office.
Lots of people die in Phnom Penh every day. The market for funeral arrangements never slows down or takes a break. Here a woman at shops at Central Market puts together floral displays that will be used that day to note someone’s death.
Valentine’s Day is a special day for me because I arrived in Cambodia to stay on Valentine’s Day, 2000! I’ve now been living here 25 years!
For practically everything in Cambodia, an ID photo is required. That’s true of ID cards, company and NGO badges, job applications, school IDs, training certificates. Everyone wants to see your face.
Recently I had to get a new passport and I decided to pay $1.25 and go to a photo shop instead of doing it myself. The U.S. Embassy now requires that passport photos be without glasses so I needed to get some made like that. There are hundreds of little photo shops all over town since everyone needs photos so it was easy to arrange. I just walk in, sit for a photo with the appropriate background, choose the final photo size, and wait ten minutes or so. Here a tech person is checking my raw photo for any problems before printing it.