Every year in September there is a celebration of Deaf Day in countries around the world, or Deaf Week as here in Cambodia. Today was our big celebration to climax Deaf Week. I couldn’t arrive till almost two o’clock because of the morning mass and because of a trip to the morgue for a parishioner who died yesterday. When I did arrive, I was totally surprised because they turned the celebration into one honoring me. Our Deaf Development Programme started in 1997 so this is our twentieth anniversary. 1997 was also the first time I came to Cambodia so my coming was included in the anniversary celebration. And because this is the “birthday” of DDP, it became a birthday celebration for me, too, notwithstanding that I was born in February. All the different celebrations got conflated together but the bottom line is that they had made a banner wishing me all the Buddhist blessings and they gave me a variety of gifts they had made. It was a genuine surprise for me and much appreciated. Come back to see more about Deaf Day in Cambodia.
This is No. 8 of the nine examples of incompetence and corruption that appeared in the headlines of The Cambodia Daily in just two days. In this article the Cambodian government continues to abuse indigenous peoples and separate them from their ancestral lands.
On Day 2 of the visit of the funders from the Siloam Center for the Blind, their team went with DDP staff to visit three deaf youth in Kampot Province who were raising pigs and chickens and ducks. 
One of the funders of DDP is the Siloam Center for the Blind in Korea. This week they came to Phnom Penh to visit the Deaf Development Programme and to meet the beneficiaries of their funding. 
