Happy Holidays

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! I had quite the different experience over here in Cambodia trying to celebrate our American holidays in the land of Buddha, but did the very best I could to have a Merry Christmas.

Cambodians do not celebrate Christmas but that didn’t stop us PCVs from throwing celebrations of our own.  For Christmas day, two other PCVs, Miriam and Amy, came to my house to meet my family and we cooked them some American food for Christmas dinner.  Well, actually, Amy and Miriam cooked and I watched and tested the food.  It was delicious J.   They made chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes, and green beans with carmelized onions.  YUM!  After dinner, we set out a little Christmas tree that was sent by my mother from America (cut out of construction paper) and some gifts for the boys and my mom that Miriam and I wrapped in some magazine paper.  IT WAS AWESOME!!! The boys first Christmas and they had a ball.  I’ve included some photos below. 

At the moment I am getting ready to celebrate New Year’s Day on an island off of Sihanoukville with a bunch of other PCVs.  Khmer New Year is in April so they do not celebrate very big for the International New Year which is January 1.  It’s an interesting concept that for my family and the rest of this country, the calendar starts again, but the holiday of New Year isn’t for another 4 months.  Ahh, cross culture. 

I’ve been having some great travels lately so stay tuned for more stories and have a wonderful bunch of holidays!!

Xo-Amanda

Food and Running (not simultaneously)

It has been a pretty busy holiday for me so far! I began it with all of the other K6s celebrating Thanksgiving in Takeo town wrapping up our last part of training.  Some of the K5s cooked us a delicious Thanksgiving meal complete with turkey and mashed potatoes.  The best part of the whole meal was that there was not a grain of rice to be seen!  The photos show our Thanksgiving feast and also three other PCVs (Caitie, Amber, and Hayley) and me downing as much as possible.  

After returning from Siem Reap, I traveled up to Koh Kong for water festival, a big holiday in Cambodia.  Some other PCVs and our country director, Penny, and I spent some of the holiday on an island in the Gulf of Thailand.  Unfortunately I broke my camera and my ipod during this trip and so there is a spot for about a month where I don’t have any photos to show. 

After Thanksgiving I conquered the half marathon in Siem Reap.  My first half marathon and I ran the whole way! It was a great combination of hard and fun I decided that I’m going to run the half marathon in Sihanoukville in March.  Thank goodness the run was mostly in the shade, and it began after the sun rose and ended in the same spot with a great view of the temples. 

Another PCV, Amber let me borrow her iphone for the race so that I would have some music and a camera to capture the memories. Thanks Amber! Arnoldo and Laura join me in the photo above.

That’s a quick update for now, hope everyone has a great last few days according to the Mayans! See you on the other side. :P

xo-Amanda