Day 1 Celebrating Khmer New Year with Dary's Family

The flight monitor never seemed to move fast enough, but we met many interesting people along the way. Heidi calls it collecting characters. We met the following characters: Circus performers headed to Bankok, a business student from Svey Ring who dreams of starting a technology related NGO in Cambodia, a family from Portland returning for  a visit to see family, a lovely Korean women and more...

Heidi enjoys a Le Royal Breakfast.

Lila NOODLE SOUP FOR BREAKFAST!

Lovely lotus flower

The team!

Fragrant flowers everywhere a welcome treat after a long snowy winter.

Beauty and then also the reality of an uncertain future for so many struggling to survive in Cambodia.

Watch out world!

Boy stays cool in heat of day-97 degrees.

Roads are very quiet on New Year weekend when everyone leaves the city to see family in their villages. Still interesting sights to see. 4-5 family members on one motobike. Cows weaving into traffic. People crowded on large open wagon for mass transit.

Little Girl with Year of the Rabbit statue.

Heidi tries first coconut.

Hope and Lila share coconut juice-delicious.

Dary and her son.

Dany and new husband-she wore 11 different dresses at their recent wedding.

Dary's son enjoys a holiday ride

Dary's Family

Woman prepares tiny birds...

Chicken, beef, morning glories

Invited to lunch with Dary's family

We celebrated our arrival after months of planning and anticipation (and 28 hours of travel) with a late night dip in the pool fully clothed! The moon was shining, it was warm and the air was dripping with fragrant flowers and the heavy smell of warm red soil unique to Cambodia. Although it was 2am, it felt like afternoon to our bodies and sleep was fleeting.

We woke up to the Le Royal Breakfast, a treat we had been dreaming of since our last visit. Noodle soup and fresh fruit, Cambodian Coffee and too many other delicacies to name. The perfect way to ease into the visit! We discussed mini lessons we would share later in the week on village visits and planned and video we will make to promote CASF back home.

Dary and her family arrived at 9:00 to pick us up with her whole family: son, mother, father, sister and her new husband, brother and wife and more! In two vans we took off to a temple not far away to celebrate the New Year as they traditionally do. First we visited a monk at the temple where Dary’s grandfather is buried. Dary's grandmother will someday join him here in a space by a lovely pond filled with water lilies. The monk blessed us with a fragrant spray of water and we brought him gifts and money. As the eerie music and chanting broadcast over speakers and echoed around us combining with  the swirl of new aromas and colors we all felt transported into an almost surreal state, heightened by long travel, excitement and heat.

Next we drove to a resort along a river made up of various stages and platforms where family’s gathered to listen to music and eat. Lisa bought raw coconuts which a thin woman cut with a hatchet and presented to us with straws to drink. She also bought one for the kids who watched us foreigners with bright eyes and they shared it in a wagon. We watched sadly as an older boy roughly grabbed the drink form a younger boy and girls but were happy to later see the youngest boy strutting around proudly with the prize coconut in his hands. A small reminder that even a little gift in a country so poor can be complicated. When we sat down to eat, we were presented with tiny skinned and fried birds with their heads still on, a chicken- feet and all, rice, a dipping sauce made of lime and pepper, a beef dish with fresh vegetables and fried morning glories. The men laughed and played cards. The women talked and soaked in the carnival atmosphere. New experiences abounding!

Finally we returned to the hotel tired but peacefully so, our heads a blur of all we had seen in just one day and thankful that Dary invited us into her family for such an intimate experience.

Off to Siem Reap to see the temples in the morning!