Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Headlines and news reports from United States media frequently make reference to the campaign to raise the minimum wage in the U.S. to $15 an hour. The minimum wage is also a matter for discussion in Cambodia but here the goal of organized labor is a minimum wage of $182 PER MONTH. The current wage norm here is $170 per month, raised before last July’s elections in order to get the garment industry workers to support the ruling party.
Tens of thousands of garment factory workers–usually young women–ride to work each day jammed, standing up, in the back of open trucks. Many of them are killed in the frequent accidents when trucks overturn and collide from speeding and throw bodies everywhere. The government’s response? “Training” drivers to obey the law and “urging” them to get driver’s licenses. That’s a neat idea.
Cambodia now is celebrating a two-week Pchum Ben festival, the Khmer equivalent of All Souls Day in western Christian cultures. During this time the Cambodian people pay special attention and respect to their deceased ancestors. Next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are the three public holidays associated with Pchum Ben, but today was the last day of class for our students who must travel to the provinces to be with their families. We allow them to go early because the transportation companies all raise their prices tremendously starting the two or three days before the public holiday. To celebrate the festival at DDP, the students cooked a traditional Khmer meal at school and invited us the staff to eat with them.
Today Keat Sokly (standing) and I, as co-directors of the Deaf Development Programme, went to Kampot Province to our center there. Our unhappy task was to explain to the staff there that our project in Kampot will be reduced in size in 2019 because of budget cuts by funders and some of the staff will lose their jobs.
Today we celebrated International Deaf Day in Cambodia and many deaf people came to spend the day or part of it with their deaf friends, playing games or just talking and catching up. Click here to see some photos from Deaf Day.
It’s not unusual to see women in Cambodia carrying something on their heads, but usually it’s a tray of peanuts or some snack for sale. This woman looks like she’s moving house.
At the end of this year, Maryknoll’s Seedling of Hope HIV/AIDS project will close and the Deaf Development Programme will move to the Seedling office building and grounds. Today the management of DDP visited Seedling with the landlord of the property to discuss the transition. A large fish pond is one of the notable features of the grounds.
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Cryptocurrency, that supposedly revolutionary and transformative technology: “if its rate of growth continues, by next year Bitcoin alone will account for the same level of carbon output as the entire United States.” ~ James Bridle in The New Yorker (September, 2018) |