Mr. Samith's family were awake and up and about by 5.30 am the next morning, with all the kids getting themselves ready and doing some chores, but all smiley and happy.
After a quick scoop shower I felt much better and we were only slightly late for the 8 am lesson, which was a similar routine as the one the night before. We had planned to leave the following day, but everyone in the family were very excited because a big Khmer New Year party was planned for the next day, and they were keen for us to stay for that. It wasn't a difficult decision to stay a bit longer, and it would give us the opportunity to contribute towards the party.
So after a day of classes we had a chance to relax a bit and I had the opportunity to take Ruby for a ride on one of the small motorbikes they had there. As expected she took to it straightaway, keeping on asking me to go faster, but the bike was only 50cc and wouldn't do much over about 30-40 mph, but that is probably a good thing as neither of us had helmets or long sleeves on. Of course Ellie's saw Ruby having a ride and wanted to as well, so a bit later I took her and Eunmi down to the little market town about 2 km away. First time for me to have Eunmi on the back of a bike in our 10 years together, so hopefully she likes it enough to do it again on a decent bike somewhere. Ellie enjoyed it too, sitting there talking away the whole time. Back to help out in the remaining classes of the day, but fewer students now as many had left to go back to be with their own families out in other provinces for Khmer New Year. But still they made effort to try and learn. Western kids could really take a good example from them.
There was still a lot of excitement over the Khmer New Year party so this was partly used as a theme for the lessons including conversations in the evening classes. It was good as we would get to ask 'Why do Khmer people celebrate the Khmer New Year', which led to quite protracted conversations. One guy replied that it was a 'habit', so I had to explain that it was more a 'cultural tradition' vs habit. But it was very enjoyable playing the teacher and exercising patience to try various ways to bring about an understanding. Having tried learn Korean I appreciated how difficult it is to learn another language.April 10th
We had arranged the night before to go down to the big market in Phnom Penh to get fruit for the party. So a bit later in the morning, we, the dutch girl Eline who had turned up yesterday, Mr Smith and another of the Khmer boys jumped on the two bikes and rode down to the edge of the city to meet Bernard & Tina at the quest house and went on to the market, where we rode in and parked. We had to hang out there while Mr. Samith wen to find some bargains without hindrance of foreigners pushing prices up. He came back after a while having secured a deal on some apples and mandarin type fruit. Something like $10 for a whole carton of apples and a very big bag of mandarins. A bunch of guys sitting on suspended board talking as we stood there and one of the boards broke much to everyone's hilarity.
All the different fruit in the market looked so nice, Longans, Drangon Fruit, Rambutan, Melons and Durian.
I was explaining about these to Tina, how the smell is pretty intense, not nice to a lot of Western people but the pithy greenish yellow stuff inside is actually very nice.
I recall in Singapore where I first tried them they were banned from the big hotels because of the smell.There were also mangosteens there, that peculiar fruit that looks like a cross between a tomato and perhaps a persimmon, but a very dark purple colour. You have to break open the very thick skin to reveal the pure white segments inside, such a lovely intense flavour, and quite unique.
One of Khmer guys told us that apparently it can be fatal to eat these with sugar, having the effect of just putting you o sleep and not waking up. Bizarre!
We then moved to an outside part of the market and again waited for Mr. Samith to organise some bananas, those beautiful finger length ones that are so much nicer than the long ones at home. He soon had about 6 whole stems full of bananas for around $10.
We got a tuktuk loaded and headed back.
On the way Mr. Samith and I also stopped to get a couple of six packs of coke and Fanta and a huge tin of cookies, and cooking oil that I balanced between us on the bike.
Again later we went out to another local market to but some beef.
The conditions were pretty unsanitary with the woman holding chopping block between her feet, smoking a cigarette and handling money at the same time, and flies everywhere.
I couldn't resist pointing out the ox tongue to Eline, who looked rather horrified.
Then on queue another woman casually picked it up and stood there just holding and stroking it, occasionally slapping on the table.
Superb effect! Wish I'd had the camera to catch Eline's expression!
We then moved back onto the highway into town to a fish shop run by one of Mr Samith's ex-students, who gave him a discount. We got about four big fish, fresh out of the tank and dispatched in front of us, again to Eline's horror.
On the way back, we picked up 2*24 packs of beer, one Klang at 6 % and one Ankor at 5%.
So around 3 pm, after much of 'is it starting yet' the children's part of the party started, based around the school yard where a sound system had emerged from somewhere, blaring local music, and a long table had ice, and the soft drinks set up and a big basket of bananas and apples, all being consumed at a furious rate.
Droves and droves of children kept turning up from all over the village, everyone excited and chasing each other round.
After a while they set up a game where some clay pots were suspended from ropes, and the kids would take turns at being blindfolded and they trying to hit the pots with a big bamboo stick, after being turned around to disorientated them.
Everyone was gathered in a circle doing their best mot to be hit by the flailing stick, and running across trying to turn the person away or towards the pot, depending who they supported.
When a pot was finally broken it would release takum powder and some small 500 riel notes for the person who broke it.
Ruby had a turn and managed to break the pot okay, and held onto it for dear life for days she was so proud of it.
The dancing and prancing carried on until around 8 pm and Bernhard and Tina even did a bit of juggling act which was nice.
Ruby spent about an hour being chased by the Khmer guys and generally staying one step ahead, avoiding being caught. She was really enjoying herself. She loves running even in the 30+ degree heat.
She is now almost as fast as me as I've slowed down a bit in recent years.
Won't be long before I can't catch her!!
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