This happened a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to mention that the masters student I have been advising got married. Back in January SeangAun told me he would get married in the summer. As he told me this though he was laughing so I had no idea if this was a joke or not. SeangAun was nice enough to invite me to his wedding, and my friend, Bing, was nice enough to accompany me. It actually took us an hour to get there with traffic and we emerged from the taxi with all eyes on the “barangs” or foreigners who were slightly lost. We found the wedding with some luck and spent the next couple hours eating a lot of Cambodian food and having incessant rounds of cheers with beer. This time I was slightly more prepared and attempted to look a bit more presentable, but the Khmer women definitely still took the cake with their elaborate dresses and make up. I had had a couple other things to do that night, but decided it was important to go to the wedding. I won’t really know if it mattered to SeangAun or not, but I’m really happy I decided to go. I definitely wouldn’t have guessed a year ago I’d be attending a Khmer wedding of a student I had been working with!
On an unrelated note, I’m trying to wrap up my work in Cambodia as my grant ends September 2nd (I can hardly believe it). We are rushing to finish the personal profile articles from the trip to Kratie last month. We are hoping to have them finished for a workshop in the U.K. next week and then also use them for International Dolphin Day which is in October. I’m in the process of hashing out final plans, but tentatively think I will be staying an additional 2-3 weeks to get the articles and the videos done. We contemplated whether I should try to finish these in the U.S., but decided it would be too difficult and better if I could extend my stay here a little bit longer. I had originally planned a trip to China and then Myanmar several months back so I will leave this weekend for those trips and then return to finish up at WWF-Cambodia. As of now I will be returning to the U.S. around the beginning of October! I’m extremely grateful I have the opportunity to go on these trips AND also finish up my work here at WWF.