We've been close to a family that is from this village about an hour outside of Phnom Penh. When they have holidays or birthdays, we're usually invited to join the party. This past Monday night was one of the grand-daughter's sixteenth birthday party. Cambodians LOVE to party and it's quite the production! This village is pretty much in the middle of rice fields. The picture above is where they were preparing all the food. (Near the chicken coops.) But, this was where they were making dinner.
These are some of the cousins that are burning paper money for the spirits. This family has some Chinese heritage. They're Cambodian - but someone in their family along the way came from China. They don't actually speak Chinese, but they do follow some Chinese religious practices. Chinese burn money, houses, paper cars, all kinds of things for good luck.
Is she not one of the cutest things you've ever seen?
And she's a cutie too! All of these cousins - whenever they see JT they cry. I'm not sure why, but it's pretty funny! I think it's just because he's white - and they probably are never around white people. This little girl was at our house playing today - when JT walked in the door she ran away and started crying!
I've never seen this dish - and I'm not sure what it is! To be honest, I was pretty nervous to eat it!
They usually set up a lot of tables like these and then the guests sit down and eat. Since we're foreigners - we're the honored guests and usually get served about an hour before everyone else! It's always a little awkward! They even made the kids french fries because they knew they'd eat them!
Almost everyone at the party wanted pictures with our kids. Hudson was usually the only one that would take pictures with people. For the most part Davis and Isobel would just scream or run away!
This is the local soccer field. Actually, it's a rice field that's not being used right now. The kids had a soccer game going on.
Cambodians also LOVE loud music! Here were the speakers that were set up for the party! Whenever they turn the music on, it's impossible to hear anyone and forget trying to carry on a conversation! All three of our kids were sitting at the table with their fingers in their ears! Usually once the party gets going, they set up karaoke.
Girls go all out in getting dressed up for parties. They usually go and get their nails, hair and makeup done. Sometimes they even rent dresses to wear. They also do this when they go to weddings and sometimes will spend lots of money doing it. These families probably make about $70 a month.
Here's a group of the friends of the birthday girl! They looked like they were all having a good time!
Here's the table that was set up. All the fruit set up is an offering to the spirits. They wanted JT (who was the official photographer of the evening) to take a picture of everyone giving their gift to the birthday girl. So we have about thirty pictures of individual people handing her their gift. She seemed to make a haul!
The most exciting part of the evening - at least for Isobel - was learning how to use a squatty- potty! We've been working on potty-training, but I wasn't really prepared for this one! Poor thing - it's definitely much easier to get little boys to go in these than girls! But she did it - twice!!
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