Word of the month: Khmerlicious. Definition: Remember that part in the movie Mars Attacks, when the Martian disguises himself as a hooker to get into the White House? He has huge hair to hide his gigantic head, now imagine that the hooker is trying to get into the Cambodian Royal Palace instead of the White House. That is Khmerlicious. This week I attended two weddings. Let me just say, I was extremely Khmerlicious. I’m not gonna lie, I was slightly scared of my own reflection in the mirror. Especially for the second wedding, they did my hair in a buffont that added at least 4 inches to my height. It was fantastic. These weddings are actually a series of about 8 different ceremonies, each lasting about 45 minutes, over the course of two days. The bride wears a different outfit for each one. Now, you have to understand, there is nothing plain, simple, or understated about traditional Khmer dress. The hair, the make up, the sequins, the clothes, the jewelry, seriously, drag queens would think it’s a little miuch. Btw, my buffont hairdo and face pavement (I’m sorry but to say they apply make up would be an understatement of infinite proportions, they do a better job of paving than the highway department) was done by a bleach blond drag queen. Happy New year to me. There were many pictures, and someday you will see them, but for now I have linked a few that I found on google so you can have some idea of what this is like. The night before, people arrange about 50 platters of food, mainly fruit, and place them before the ancestor shrine (every Buddhist Khmer home has one). The next day, when enough guests have arrived, everyone grabs a platter and takes their food for a walk. Literally. It is supposed to represent the groom bringing food as a gift for the bride’s family. There is a ceremony where people pretend to cut the bride and groom’s hair (I did that) and one where people tie a red string around their wrists (did that too). But basically, the whole thing is one big photo op. Most of the couple’s time is spent being posed by a photographer. The interesting thing is that most wedding guests don’t actually see any ceremony. The close friends and family will take part in the whole thing, but the majority will come for either lunch or dinner, eat, give money and leave. During the meal, the bride and groom stand at the entrance and greet guests. That is all most of the guests see of them. I was pretty excited that the last wedding had a cake. It wasn’t exactly like an American wedding cake, but for someone who hasn’t eaten cake in five months, it was close enough. The wedding costs the family over $5000 They feed between 50-500 people five meals over the course of a day and half. They also have about 10-15 different outfits made for the bride alone. The rest of the wedding party changes clothes quite a few times as well.

But I would hate to have you think that all I do is party. Not at all. The day after Christmas I harvested rice. By hand. In my pajamas. It was pretty much the best thing ever. The teachers and the students all went to some random person’s rice paddy (I still don’t know exactly who it belongs to) and used a sickle to harvest rice. It am proud to say that they gave me the sharpest sickle, and managed to not hurt myself or anyone around me. Apparently my stretchy capre pants were ´unstuitable´, so I wore pajama pants like everyone else. It is perfectly acceptable to walk around in pajama sets here. They are not suitable for traveling, but for everyday wear, totally acceptable. You have to get dressed up when you travel, which I don’t understand at all. Traveling involves cramped spaces and extreme amounts of either mud or dust. But you can’t really ask why things happen here. They told us in training that when your questions go unanswered, you simply aren’t asking the right question. Well, the right question isn’t why, it’s why not. Why not wear pajamas all the time? Why not have police carry AK47s when they don’t have the budget to buy bullets?

On Christmas day I taught my students Jingle Bells. It was slightly awesome. They really like to sing. I was also randomly given coffee four different times by people who didn’t even know it was Christmas. Merry Christmas to me. I breakfasted on the individual serving of Frosted Flakes the fam sent, and an oatmeal cream pie. Not exactly a king cake, but yummy nonetheless. Thanks again to everyone who sent me stuff. It is greatly appreciated. A belated happy holiday to all.