Priests Retreat–Day 3

Fr. Miguel, the retreat master, and Bishop Kike working on a computer glitch.

The priests of Cambodia gathered for a liturgy in the parish church. (I don’t know why so many of the guys feel the need to dress up in albs and stoles–an indication of clericalism to me.)
Me with a group of Jesuits after one of the talks. The Jesuits have a REALLY good presence here in Cambodia with some REALLY good men.

Priests Retreat–Day 2

The two retreat talks each day are presented in this large hall at the edge of the property. This year the hall has new doors that enclose the room and air conditioning has been added.
Fr. Miguel, a Jesuit priest who has spent the last 50+ years in Thailand, is leading our retreat.
The liturgy on the first full day was organized by the Kampong Cham priests.

Priests Retreat — Day 1

Today about 60 priests from Cambodia gathered at the Catholic center in Sihanoukville on the coast for a week of retreat.

Four of us drove down together but before we left Phnom Penh we had lunch at an NGO restaurant where we ran into some lay missioners.
Arriving at the center at St. Michael Church, our group checked the room list to see which building they would sleep in.
At 5:30 PM we had a short opening ceremony which featured a musical group composed of quite young children who played traditional instruments and danced.
The three bishops and retreat leader and our host priests sat at a head table for the music and dancing and introductions.
The young women in black and white are students from the food and beverage training program at the Salesian school where I have mass on Monday mornings. They are getting practical experience working this retreat.

Royal Plowing Day

Today King Sihomani attended the annual royal plowing ceremony in Kampong Speu Province. The ceremony, held at the beginning of the rainy season, is to predict the fortunes of various agricultural crops in Cambodia.

First two oxen make three plowing trips across the designated field, attended by royal officials.

Then the oxen were led to seven platters with various foods, to see which they would choose. Today the oxen favored rice, corn, and soybeans indicating to the officials that those crops will be bountiful this year. The other offerings placed before the oxen were sesame, grass, water, and wine.

[Now you know! If you want to invest in Cambodian soybean futures, now is the time!]

[Photos are from the Khmer Times.]

After 30 years….

Johnny Ng (R) is a deaf man from Singapore whom I have know for 30+ years. He met Sophors (L) and his wife Sreytin at a Catholic deaf meeting in Indonesia last year and they arranged for Johnny to visit Phnom Penh. Tonight after our mass, we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Still growing….

When I first started flying to Bangkok in 1980s, the old Don Muang airport was a bit dowdy but served well. Then the new Suvarnabhumi Airport was build, relegating Don Muang to a domestic and no-frills airport.

Coming back from Bangkok last, there is now a no-frills S terminal at Suvarnabhumi and it is top-notch. It’s got all the shops and glitz and gardens. Just no people. It just opened and the carriers haven’t moved all their flights there.

It’s nice but it took almost twenty minutes to get there, even with a train ride, from the main Suvarnabhumi terminal.

Take your pick….

I don’t like to cook–and don’t even have a stove in my house, just a microwave. Cambodia has many of these food stalls–simple shops set up on the street where a woman or a family cooks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more big pots of what the Cambodians call “food,” i.e., something to be eaten with rice which in Cambodian culture is NOT food.

Once every week or so, I go to a food stall near my house and lift the lids of the six pots there to see what has been prepared. I look for things I might like and also look for the chopped red chilies in a pot. Those pots I REALLY avoid.

I tell the cook I want enough food for four people and give her a plastic box to put it in and then I ask for enough rice for four people and give another plastic box for that. Then I go home and each night of the week I eat the same thing fired up in the microwave. Supper for five nights costs me $6.25.

Welcome, Sami…

Sami Scott is a Maryknoll Lay Missioner who formerly worked in Venezuela and Cambodia and is now assigned to Haiti. Because of the unrest and violence there, she has had to leave Haiti and is now on a visit to Cambodia.

Sami (pink top) joined us for our regular Wednesday afternoon gathering for mass.

Then our group, coming from eight different countries, had a pizza dinner.

Pentecost

More engaging and certainly more colorful than my making macaroni and cheese on Sunday was our celebration of Pentecost with the combined Khmer, Vietnam, French, Korean, and English communities.

38 mostly young people received the sacrament of confirmation at the Pentecost mass. It is the tradition here for those being confirmed to wear red and white traditional dress.

Several adults from the Korean community received confirmation, and afterwards all the Koreans present gathered for a photo with Bishop Olivier.