The revival is starting

As we were coming back from the Saturday evening mass tonight, we commented how the crowds are starting to reappear on the waterfront. For more than a year, the area along the river–the night time tourist center of Phnom Penh—was almost deserted because of Covid-19. Now people are out eating and enjoying themselves. This woman has her popcorn stand ready to go.

Not again!

When I got my first passport in 1983 it had, I think, 40 pages and cost $15. After ten years when I got a new one, it cost $30. Then the third one was $80 or $90 and had only half the pages. Now this latest announcement from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh raises the cost to $130! Ouch!

Multi-tasking

First there was the pharmacy. Then they added the coffee stand. And then, what the heck, let’s sell all kinds of drinks! And unless someone sleeps out in front every night, they set all this up in the morning and put it back in the shop every evening.

Preparing the ground



After laying the cornerstone last week, construction of the new church at St. Joseph parish has continued, especially assessing the firmness of the soil and the beginning of driving piles into the ground. Tonight when we finished our evening mass, the workers had departed for the day and left this crane silhouetted against the evening sky.

A birthday

Today was Soknym’s first birthday as a member of the DDP staff and the rest of the staff provided a cake for celebrating together with him this afternoon.