wanderlust: March in Cambodia: heat, weddings, and more heat

Current time: 3:06 PM on a Monday afternoon. My fan is working as hard as it can, my room is doing its best to bake me, and I’m fairly certain I can see the heat waves rising off of my glistening skin. The only person holding me back from complete insanity right now is Bill Bryson, and even that will be short-lived: I have only thirty pages left of Neither Here Nor There.

March is one of the hotter months in Cambodia—not as hot as April but still, temperatures are up there. Students have stopped coming to class, getting a leg up on the relaxation that’s soon to take place for Khmer New Year in mid-April.

It is also a time for weddings. It seems that with the atmosphere of summer and the feeling of freedom that comes with that, everyone’s looking to party whenever and wherever possible…

As I type this, there is a wedding going on across the street. The bass line is so loud it’s reverberating in my chest. Preparations for the wedding began around 4:00 AM, with a detailed play-by-play relayed over a loudspeaker: “There will be 36 different dishes! … and sweets and fruit… if we run out, we’ll just buy more!...”

Weddings in Cambodia are funny and strange. On Sunday my crafty and very pushy friend Ohn once again swindled me into committing myself to an awkward gathering with her. This time the commitment was going to a wedding with her and our mutual Khman (Khmer man- term courtesy of my friend Diana and me) friend, Sopia. I agreed, on the condition that I could bring Garrett. She said this was fine, as long as he wore “new clothes.” I promised I would make him do just that.

In the early evening, Sopia, Garrett, Ohn, and I all went to this wedding, which was down a windy dirt road, dressed in our finest. As we entered the wedding, we sompayaed, or gave respects to, the family, and after much chaotic movement of chairs and tipping over of half emptied beer cans on the table to make room, were sat at a table with several other Khmer people and a man who looked Khmer but was explained to “speak English” like us.

As it turns out, this man was Khmer by birth but has spent the past 30 years living and growing up in Ohio, where he was brought from Cambodia as a child by a missionary organization. In between bites of rice and seasoned duck, beef, and big pieces of gritty fish and shrimp Ohn kept putting in my bowl and swigs of Angkor beer, we chatted with this man and learned his story.

He came back to Cambodia several years ago to re-connect with his roots, and met a Khmer woman he took as his wife. He has been back several times to visit for extended periods, and they now have a five-month old baby girl named Alex. Both his wife and daughter are beautiful. He wants to bring them to the states to visit, but the process of getting a Visa for Khmer people is very extensive and difficult. I can’t imagine being separated from your family by an ocean and not knowing when the situation will be remedied...

As the night wore on, the music got louder and conversation became nearly impossible, so we did what anyone would do: drinking more beer, toasting repeatedly and grinning at each other from across the table. Ohn’s friends dragged us from the table to dance awkwardly in a circle to heavy bass-lined Khmer music, altering our movements (or in some cases, not) to be in sync with the rhythm of the current song.

At the end of the night, before we went home, Sopia, Garrett, Ohn, and I all took a picture together outside of the wedding. Klee, our new Khmer-American friend, snuck into the picture at the last minute haha. I don’t have it yet, but hopefully will at some point in the future at which point I’ll post it here.

...And now, please enjoy some funny, random pictures from recent times. :)

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One of the many enlightening books my library has to offer students from its collection (note: this was not one of the books I purchased, but was donated years ago by a Japanese organization I will grace by leaving unnamed).

Mountain! My favorite breakfast: toast topped with fried potatoes seasoned with cumin and paprika, and made better than I could have imagined with a duck egg (LOOK AT THAT YOLK, PEOPLE).

My plant! Which had a home in my room for about twelve hours before the mice realized how wildly entertaining it was to dig up all the dirt and see how angry it made me. It is now sitting, unmolested, downstairs.