Happy New Year (again)

Wednesday 6th February 2008

With the office unexpectedly closed this afternoon, I found myself with nothing to do... but not for long! I was not only invited to 1 Chinese New Year party, but three Chinese New Year parties! And it is extremely impolite not to accept an invitation in Cambodia so I found myself joining all three!


Funnily enough, it was exactly the same food at each party, the same beer and strangley many of the same people at each one too, having the same conversations!


My first party was with some colleagues from the District Office of Education. I'm not sure who the host actually was but I happily tucked into the duck curry and bread which was being served on mats on the floor of someone's house in the village.

After making a polite exit, I made my way back to the guesthouse where I live, where the landlady's family were holding a party. This party was also for little Pon who turned 3 years old on the same day. He is probably my favourite one out of the little boys related to the landlord. Despite his blackened front teeth, he doesn't scream as much as the other two when he doesn't get his own way and he has a gentler side which means he refrains from kicking unsuspecting, passing dogs for no reason. I even gave in to pressure and had a little dance at this party!



Again, after polite excuses and promises to return, I headed to the third party. This was at a colleaugues house and was a more somber (no, not sober!) affair. Here, the Khmer gentlemen had drunk just enough beer by this time to allow the few English words they had lodged in the depths of their memories to rise to the surface. They proceeded to shout their slurred English words at me as we repeated the same conversations we had had at party number 1 a few hours previously.



And then I returned to Party number 2 as promised, fed the dogs some of the left overs, cuddled one of the 3 remaining puppies and then went to bed. I still stand by the fact that I can drink more than 10 Khmer men and still hold a reasonable conversation but its very funny watching them try!