Saturday, November 17, 2007

End of a busy day

Daroeurn (left) and Delice in typical wedding party style
I concluded a busy day yesterday with a wedding party at the popular group of Phkar Chhouk Tip restaurants near the Olympic Stadium, the area was awash with wedding parties and ours was as loud and frantic as all of them. It was the wedding of Buntha and Dina, I knew neither of them, but the bride’s father, Pheap is one of Hanuman’s drivers and he graciously invited all of the office staff to the big occasion, and we didn’t disappoint, with the majority turning up. Of course, the guys just don a clean shirt and trousers but for the ladies it’s a chance to get their hair coiffeured and their make-up done at the beauty salon and to wear their latest figure-hugging and colourful creations. The photo above is of two of our senior sales staff, Daroeurn (left) and Delice. I took other photos but I’m really not happy with my Sanyo digital camera, it has an aversion to taking pictures at night - or maybe it’s just the guy operating the camera!
We arrived at the party a little late as the traffic jams around the Olympic Stadium were horrendous. I imagine it’s going to be considerably worse in a week’s time when the water festival circus comes to town and the city swells to double its normal size. Everyone has told me to leave town but it’s my first water festival, so I’m going nowhere, except the riverside area to experience what all the fuss is about.
A brand new hardbook edition of Denise Affonco’s memoir, To The End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, arrived in the post yesterday, exactly on the day of its official publication by Reportage Press. They are a new London-based publishing house specializing in books on foreign affairs or set in foreign countries and they’ve sent me a copy of Denise’s book for review. Her testimony of life under the murderous Khmer Rouge sold 50,000 copies when published in 2005 in France as La Digue des Veuves and is now published for the first time in English. From the first few pages, I think it’s one of those books that when you begin reading it, it’s hard to put down.
As I was leaving the office for the day I took this photo of my desk which received some interesting comments when I posted a photo of it a few weeks ago, so here’s another, with some of the more interesting paper-weights on display. Next week a photo of my chair!! Only kidding..

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