Khmer New Year

It’s so hot at the moment! We are currently in the middle of the hot season and I’m feelin’ it. Any activity we do tends to be in the morning or the evening at the moment, lunch breaks are longer as even walking to the classroom  makes me all sweaty, actually I’m a bit sweaty even  sat down in front of a fan . I wasn’t able to sleep due to the heat but I have now moved  my mattress onto the roof terrace which makes a huge amount of difference,  it’s actually a little cool up there by 11o’clock. Thankfully it’s not just me, the Khmer are suffering too, the children are all sleeping on the tiled floor and the majority of my conversations with the group home manager orientate around how hot we are.

We celebrated Khmer New Year for three days starting on the 13^th of April. A couple of the children who have relatives went to stay with them for the weekend which they were very excited about, they returned with presents for the group home, Bethany and I were inundated with mangos. During the long weekend we celebrated with water and talcum powder fights, treat foods, a trip to the pagoda and lots of traditional New Year games. My favorite was a game involving two teams, a big bucket of water and two water containers one for each team. The water containers were placed at the opposite end of the playground to the water bucket and it was race to see which team could fill their container with water first. They had to carry the water in their mouths. It was hilarious especially when the very young children joined in Sayha finally made it across the playground to find he couldn’t reach up to the container, his usual response to anything is to make a huge noise but with a mouthful of water he was stuck not knowing what to do it was very funny.

I almost opted out of the trip to the pagoda in favor of a morning under the hose, but I’m glad I went, it was interesting. The Buddhist stuff is rather strange they didn't really stop moving other than to be chanted at by a monk for about 2 minutes. The rest of the time at the pagoda was spent; washing statues, giving cooked rice, giving uncooked rice, burying money in rice burying money in sand, and wafting incense sticks. It didn’t seem that they did any religious thinking or praying or worshiping as I thought most religions do.

The women all dressed up in their Khmer outfits and heels, I was told to go and put on something more ‘beautiful’ when I tried to leave in a t shirt and shorts. I get the feeling it was a chance for the women to show themselves off.
The children’s Khmer outfits were much nicer in my opinion than the women’s. I would much prefer to own one of those if I was allowed, which I wouldn't be, I expect the tailor would refuse to make it.
 The skirt was floatier and thinner and instead of being straight with a flap they were just gathered all the way round at the waist band. Some skirts went to the ankle an some stopped just below the knee.  The tops were cotton without any of that ugly sparkly sequined netting, they were just plain cotton with a cut out flower pattern in the material and nice neat sleeves no puffs or frills. So much nicer I think the women should ditch their outfits and wear what the children wear.

I’ve just had a really good weekend. I joined a group of 8 going cycling, and had a really good time. I was apprehensive about the heat but I’m turning into jelly and I’ve heard it’s a good thing to do. We cycled 60km in the countryside which was hot and dusty but it was beautiful and I saw a very impressive kingfisher. At one point we had to squeeze ourselves and bikes into a couple of small khmer canoes to cross a river which was fun.

Week 30

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster month starting terribly and ending very well. We had a week and a bit of exhaustion and illness. We were both vomiting and diarrhea which was horrible horrible horrible when we didn’t have any running water apart from in the middle of the night. I then got depressed and homesick and things and decided I hate khmer food. So that was a definite low of the year. But theeeeen …MUM AND DAD ARRIVED!

We spent 2 weeks split between Siem Reip, Phnom Penh and at the seaside in Kep. It was bliss, I felt like a princess in all the posh hotels, and I did my best to make the most of Mum and Dad’s visit by only stopping talking to sleep.  We ate delicious seafood drank lots of cocktails visited Angkor Wat, swam, chatted, visited the orphanage did a bit of shopping and they payed for it all :) Mum took me to the supermarket and we bought all the basic ingredients for cooking so now I can cook which will be great as my deep dislike for Khmer food especially orphanage food doesn’t seem to have worn off.

We have started PSHE sessions and English classes with the old teenagers. I was really scared about them both. I have enjoyed them though especially the English classes as they speak reasonable English so we are not just learning vocabulary and we can have a laugh. At school the children are encouraged against questioning so we have been trying to incorporate an aspect of debate to the classes, for example Bethany has created a set of laws for a fantasy country and I have been discussing strikes.

Rachana is back to school! She has been for two weeks now, I’m pretty sure I was more excited about her first day than she was.