Some of our more avid readers may remember that Vitou & Dany got married a few weeks back and we mentioned it in a previous post. Well, since then they have had another 2 celebrations! The first was a Christian wedding in PP, the second was a traditional Khmer/Buddhist wedding, at the insistence of her father, at her parents house in the Province and then the weekend of the 8th Jan was a party at his parents house. They asked me to photograph the Christian and this one, but this time I only had my manual camera and for the first time in a long time I took about 40 pictures before realising I hadn't got any film in! Flip! Thankfully, I got another two films worth so there should be enough.
So, the party basically consisted of continuous eating and dancing. They invited over 1000 people who came and went during the two days! Mental. For the first time I ate chicken feet, which was nice but largely because it was barbecued. My name, unfortunately, sounds a bit like the Khmer phrase 'See moh-an' which means 'eat chicken like an animal' so there was plenty of jokes as I was gnawing away. It's easier to eat chicken feet when everyone else is doing it as if it is the most normal thing in the world, which to them is actually is, and when it is barbecued because the meat/skin comes of easily. When it is boiled it tends to be rather more chewy and is actually, I'd imagine, like eating the stretchy bit of skin on your elbow. I didn't get chance to try a chicken head, because these were snatched up pretty quickly. Needless to say, I wasn't too gutted (although the chicken was and I probably unbeknownst to me, ate some).
Dancing was ace, it was a mixture of traditional Khmer music and Khmer drum and base! Traditional music has a traditional style of dance which is slowly going round in a circle standing next to someone and doing a step routine and then twisting your hands over and over...and over. It's pretty easy to pick-up but they are still impressed when a foreigner joins in. The drum and base was amusing, cause they love it but have no idea how to dance to it, so when I was throwing my shapes everyone thought I was some sort of dancing guru! An impression I didn't try and downplay, as you can imagine.
The music is very loud, so everyone has to stay awake until it finishes because there is noway you will get sleep while it is still going on. It went on till about 12.30 which is quite early for a Khmer wedding, I've heard tales of 3 or 4am. Anyway, I went to sleep in at Saory's house up the road and village beds are basically wood with a mat on it and it was cold, so I didn't get much sleep at all and when I finally did, I got woken by the music starting again at about 5am!
It was great fun, but they were doing two nights of it! Which is just too much of a good thing, so a few of us made our excuses and came home.
In other news, Terry & Karen Nutter came to ease the workload for a couple of weeks and it was great to have them around. They have since left and we have seen the return of the Bartons (Warren, Jeannie & Rowan) and the Alms (Bong Tom, Lynne, Dan, Alyce & Charlie). Also Brendan Rogers has made an appearance. Very good to have them around with new ideas. Dan, Alyce & Charlie are leaving tomorrow, sadly and Brendan on Tuesday.
GB,
Simon
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