I've never had so many mens hands on one part of my body before..

My head.

It's Khmer New Year!! And I have to say it has been one of the MOST fun times!! Khmer New Year is unlike anything I've ever seen or even dreamed of. Traditionally, water was used for washing your Buddhist statue at home. Then you washed yourself as well. Now it is one great big water fight all over the country!! Seriously. It's unbelievable. It's like someone sent a memo out that nobody missed. Everywhere you go you people are lined up on the streets with water and baby powder. It doesn't really matter who you are. You're going to get soaked if you leave your house during the holiday.

On Monday my boys took me out to help me experience my first Khmer New Year. Myself, Kong, Tongpang, Seyha, Seyha's friend (I don't know his name) and Kong's older brother Riti went out on 3 motto's and hit the town!

But first we made possibly close to 100 water "balloons". They were really just small plastic bags filled with water. Everywhere we went there were people stopping us in the middle of the road to either drench us in water or powder us. Usually both. Sometimes there were like 5 or 6 pairs of hands on my face/head at one time. I've never swallowed so much baby powder!! Ugh. But it was well worth it!

It was such an incredible thing to see every one getting along so well. There was this strange unity among the Cambodians. It didn't matter who you were, what you looked like, you were going to get bags of water thrown at you or stopped on the street so people could shout "Happy New Year!" and cover you with baby powder. Honestly, it was very beautiful.

One of my favourite moments was going to the pagoda! Oh man!! It was like party central!! Think of a movie where there's a wild party happening at a University. That's what it felt like at the Pagoda. There were SO MANY young people and EVERYONE was covered with powder and absolutely dripping with water. It was the most fun place to be I guess. But what gets me is that the Pagoda is supposed to be sacred ground. It's the monks home. That's where these people go to worship. Didn't they feel as though they were some how defiling this sacred place?

Hmmm...

Anyways, that was Monday. Such a fantastic day!

Tuesday I woke up and I was feeling pretty lousy to be honest. My throat was very sore and my body was strangely achy. As the day wore on I began to notice I had a head ache. I decided to stay at home and let the boys have some fun on their own this time (the water fights last for at least 3 days!) and I became very ill during the afternoon. I thought maybe it was from being wet and driving around all day on the back of a motto. Well, I slept terribly and in the morning I decided to see a doctor. My tonsils were so swollen and sore I was terrified that they needed to come out. Now, going to the doctor isn't a big deal, right? But if you're Brianna Siis and in a third world country, yeah, it is a big deal. I have not gone to a doctor once since I arrived. And let me tell you, I've been pretty darn sick.

Anyways, long story short, I have laryngitis. =(

I'm on meds for the next week. I am pretty bummed out because I was supposed to go with Kong and his family to the waterfalls on Thursday but now everyone is cancelling because I'm sick.

The doctor gave me something for the pain and fever. I'm surprised at how much pain I'm in! Like, it's even hard to breath at times. Not so much now that I have the medicine, but boy-oh-boy was I miserable before...

OH!! Tonight Kong signed up for a Facebook account!! So if you're a Facebooker and you feel like you know Kong already because I talk about him so much, go and be his friend!! It would make him very happy! Just let him know you're a friend of mine. Look for Kong Lee.

18 days =D