Landlord's Party

This past weekend, our landlord had a mother's birthday / housewarming parties at the house. He had the house built and it is divided down the middle with his family living on one side and we are on the other. Our front courtyard,however, is not divided although we each have a gate.

So Saturday morning early, about 20 or so family members from the province came in and began to work on setting up, decorations, shrines, etc. These sweet little old ladies from villages came in and looked in our windows (they were open) and smiled with beetlenut-rotted out-teeth smiles. Not being here before, they didn't realize that they were on 'our' side of the house, so one came in the back door and went into the bathroom. You should have seen the look on Rich's face(he was getting something out of the refrigerator)!!

The first picture is the traditional khmer instruments that were played for the mother's birthday party. It was a Buddhist party with the monks blessing her and she blessing the family. The window behind the instruments is our living room, so it was loud!!! They played off an on from noon on Saturday (while people were setting up) until 10pm. Then at 6:25 AM Sunday morning, they started again and went until noon. The ladies from the province came and sat for hours working on 'decorations' that were used for the monks and mother's birthday celebration. Most were made of palm tree stalks with banana leaves wrapped around the outside. They were really beautiful. I hope you can see some in the picture.

The picture of the 'cage' is a box (Rebekah called it 'the blessing box') made out of bamboo poles and decorated with lotus flower bulbs as well as colorful paper ornaments on sticks and other decorations. Sina, our landlord told me that his mother sits in there and the monks on the platform would bless her and then the family gathers around while she blesses them. For a big part of the party, several monks (with microphones attached to powerful speakers) chanted for hours! They got a lot of money and gifts given to them during the party. The last picture is part of that time. Sina,
our landlord, is in the white shirt in front of the monks.

All of this happened under a canopy that covered the courtyard and then another longer canopy that covered the street. Attached to the one in the street was another lit shrine with flags on it that stayed lit up all night.

The mother's birthday (she is 90 years old) lasted until noon on Sunday. At 4:30 pm, the housewarming party started and we were invited to attend. I'll tell about that in the next blog along with some pictures. Having fun here! Hope you are as well. Remember - be joyful!!! Smile a lot!!! Know we love you all!!! Ronda

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