Commuting to Work

Last year Cambodia’s garment factories exported more than $13 billion worth of apparel. The clothing, footware, and travel gear industry is a major sector of the kingdom’s economy, along with tourism.

There are more than 1,300 garment factories in Cambodia, employing upwards of 840,000 workers, mostly young women. Most of these workers travel from their villages to the factories in open trucks, standing in the back with no seats, no seat belts, no safety measures.

[Photos from the Khmer Times]

Road accidents involving factory workers are common. More than 70 workers were standing in the back of this truck when it was in an accident with another truck. They may have been lucky there was so much mud to soften the impact when they were thrown from the vehicle as it rolled down an embankment.

Customizing

One of our barber students spent some after-hours time customizing his bike. I’m not sure how he got the yellow plastic strips or what they are from, but he spent a couple hours fixing up his ride.

Daughters of Charity

The Daughters of Charity, a congregation founded by St. Vincent de Paul, opened a new building near the airport in Phnom Penh and asked Bishop Olivier to come bless it.

The house is located in an area where thousands of garment factory workers live, and the sisters will take of the workers’ children during the day while the mothers are on the job.

Of course, every ceremony starts with a traditional blessing dance.

After a liturgy, Bishop Olivier went through the building and blessed the rooms with holy water, and then all the guests were invited for lunch.

Jesuit Ordination

Bishop Olivier prays the prayer of ordination over Fr. Damo while all the attending priests support the call for God’s Spirit to come upon Damo by extending their hands

After ordination, Fr. Damo is embraced by Bishop Olivier, marking a joyful end to years of preparation. Jesuits are usually ordained at an older age than diocesan priests, typically getting an advanced degree before they are deemed ready for priesthood.

At the end all the priests, Damo’s family, and Buddhist monks as invited co-workers get together.

Jesuit Ordination

Preparation before the ceremony

Yesterday’s post showed some of the preparations taking place all around the church compound the day before the ordination. These photos today show the immediate preparation as the priests gathered to vest and process to the sanctuary.

About 90 priests from maybe 2o countries came to Battambang for the ordination. Many of them were Jesuits participating in the celebration for a confrere.
Bishop Kike of Battambang and Damo before the ceremony.
All the current deacons in Cambodia (Damo in the center). The others will be ordained priests later this year.
A young man in a wheelchair led the entrance procession.
The procession from the bishop’s house to the ceremony site.

Jesuit Ordination

We arrived in Battambang about 1:00 PM on Friday for the ordination to be held on Saturday morning. Preparations were in full swing.

At the actual site of the ordination, chairs were set up for a reported 2,000 attendees.
Bishop Olivier went over the texts and different parts of the ceremony with the ministers for the next day.
Bishop Kike took photos of the young women who would perform the traditional welcome dance at the beginning of the ceremony.
Musicians with traditional Cambodian instruments accompanied the dancers for the rehearsal.
On another part of the church grounds, sleeping arrangements were prepared for the hundreds of overnight guests coming from far parts of Cambodia.
Then as night fell a simple meal was offered to those who had worked hard and would be staying overnight.

Jesuit Ordination

Yesterday and today, I was in Battambang at the Catholic center there, to participate in the ordination of Chour Damo as a Jesuit priest. The ordination was today. I went there yesterday because it is a 5+ hours drive from Phnom Penh. Yesterday as workers were preparing food, lodging, the church grounds, and the ordination site, I found Chour Damo together with his younger brother, Chour Darong who is the executive director of Krousar Thmey, an International NGO serving children at risk in Cambodia.

Chour Darong (L) and Chour Damo

Birthday

Today was the birthday of one our deaf staff, Sreytin who is one of our teachers. Here some students cut up fruit for a surprise celebration.
Then the staff and students gathered in the eating area outside to surprise Sreytin.
And there was the mandatory group photo!

The planning begins….

The last full week in September is celebrated annually as Deaf Week, a time for deaf people to celebrate their situation, their life, their culture. We celebrate Deaf Week at DDP but this year we are late getting started. Today we had our first meeting about our activities that will start just about a month from now.