It's A New Year

Last week everyone in Cambodia took the majority of the week off for Khmer New Year, a national holiday. In contrast to Water Festival, where everyone from the provinces/countryside come to Phnom Penh to celebrate -- Khmer New Year instead sends the majority of people out of Phnom Penh back to their homelands in the village. However, while the other SALTers went with their families to visit relatives in various Cambodia provinces, my family (and thus I) only have family here and stayed in Phnom Penh. It was an interesting experience seeing the population of the biggest city in Cambodia drop by more than half for a week. The biggest difference for me was traffic, it was nice having a lot more breathing room on the road, although it was ironically a more frightening driving experience since no one seems to follow any of the rules. A common New Year resolution must to blow every red light possible... It seems most of the police men also leave Phnom Penh and the few who do stay don't seem to really care much. As is Cambodia.

It would have been very easy for me to spend this free week alone in my room whilst peering out of the steel-barred window. My family didn't seem to do much for the occasion besides putting up Christmas lights in the door and setting up a fruit offering complete with Pepsi Twist. (I'm just remembering I didn't get a photo, darn. I'll have to upload the few photos I took later, for my camera is not with me at the moment.) I still don't really know what type of special occasions would inspire my family to 'go out' and 'do something' since they didn't seem to be phased by the New Year. Although maybe I'm just wrong, and they spend their afternoons fighting crime and going to water parks when I'm at work -- it could happen!

Thankfully, my host brother took me under his wing and invited me to join him in his personal festivities with friends. One day was spent eating KFC with his years-long friends and gambling small amounts of money (usually around 13 cents per game) on a variety of chance and card games as well as the ol' classic 'Bingo'. The next night we went out with another group for Khmer BBQ (translated to 'Fire Mountain' - delicious) and then moved on to some Karaoke.

I must make a side-bar to say that it was definitely a goal of mine to do Karaoke with a group of Cambodians since arriving, nothing like grabbing a microphone and making a fool of yourself in front of people you don't know.

I felt a bit strange at first, and perhaps because my expectations were hoping for a more exciting experience: 9 of us got our own private room and big screen TV to Karaoke and enjoyed the next 4 hours politely sitting uniformly and typically singing slow songs. No dancing, no standing, no one even daring enough to order a soda. I did give a heart-throbbing performance of "I want it that way" by the Backstreet Boys which I like to think made the night a bit more electric.

I spent this week mostly observing my [host] brother and his friends 'hang out' -- not being skilled enough myself to actually engage in the rapid Khmer conversation. I'm very thankful for my [host] brother, we may be a few years apart and each live in our own different worlds, but there is no disdain between us and I've come to understand him as a very loving and caring Christian and through Christ I know that we will be able to stay brothers forever.

On the flip-side, one can only spend so much time in someone else's friend circles before you start to miss your own. I've frequently thought of and missed my many good friends back home and pray that they are all doing well. I've been very lucky to meet so many great people over the years and hope see these friendships continue.

Lastly, in light of homesickness I was blessed to receive a large stack of birthday cards in the mail today -- I think I counted 20 cards, awesome! My birthday was on March 29, but you know how sending mail to the other side of the world can be :D So a BIG 'thank you' to everyone from Metamora Mennonite Church and family members/friends who sent me a card, you know who you are, and there are too many of you to address specifically in this post, it's already long enough :P

Well God bless to everyone out there reading this blog, thanks for checking in to hear from me, feel free to send me an email if you wish. I've been having a wonderful experience and have never felt quite as close in my relationship with Christ as I have this year. It's hard to believe it's already been 8 months here, I'll be seeing some of you soon.