Being a bridesmaid in Cambodia is not the same as being a bridesmaid in America, shocking I know. For example, you DO NOT ask your good friends to be bridesmaids in Cambodia, because you like your friends. Instead you choose people you may vaguely know who will make the pictures more beautiful. You might, say, choose two students who are very thin and pale and one foreigner who will add a certain cache to the wedding photos. Also, the wedding party does not help with anything except looking nice, but not as nice as the bride.
I did as requested and showed up, which I was told later meant being at the bride's house at 4 am. Yes, you read that right, four o'clock IN THE MORNING. The next two hours were consumed with applying enough makeup to paint a house on the bride and three bridesmaids, and teasing everyone's hair like there was some sort of eighties look-a-like contest to be participated in. Just in case your own teased hair wasn't big enough, there was plenty of fake hair to tease and pile on as well.
My personal favorite part was the eyebrow shaving. I'd like to remind everyone that is was FOUR A.M. and I can barely make it anywhere on time by seven, so I was not fully conscious when they began to shave off part of my eyebrows. When I realized what was happening I did have enough where-with-all to say, "Hey! Please don't do that. Just a little," to which the response was obviously, "No problem! Don't worry! It looks good." In case you were wondering, it doesn't look good. They are still growing back and that doesn't look good either.
After the morning of picture taking, and outfit changing (I was on my second outfit, the bride was on her fourth or fifth) we returned to the house to eat rice. Then it was time for outfit number three (pink top, red pants, least comfortable) and the hair cutting ceremony. Everyone in attendance has a change to come up and pretend to cut the bride and groom's hair. I'm pretty sure money is collected too. A lot of perfume was sprayed. It was really interesting, but man did that outfit HURT! The shirt was squeezing my shoulders so badly I wanted to cry by the time it was over.
Unfortunately we only had a short dinner break before the "eating of cut fruit". I was excited by this, because who doesn't like fruit? Except that we didn't actually get to eat fruit. I did have a nice moment when I was walking in circles around the pile of fruit and firecrackers on the stage in basically a big wedding dress when I just thought, "...WHAT?!?!"
That was the end of day one and I was more than ready for a shower and some sleep, before my 3 a.m. wake-up call the next day.
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Cambodia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Cambodia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely