A Country Wedding

This morning I packed into a 12 seater van with 13 others from my church to go to a wedding in a small village in Kampot province. The groom (Da) attends my church and he also works at the Bible College. This is a picture of Da and his wife. The bride and groom have many outfits that they wear during their wedding. This is the 2nd out of 3 that they wore when I was there.In Cambodia most people are only invited to the reception. It is very different to go to a wedding just to eat and give the couple some money. When we arrived, we all sat around on mats and drank fresh coconut milk and ate the coconut flesh. There were a group of kids there who may have never seen a white person before -- at least not one with blond hair and blue eyes. They were all scared of me. They just stood and stared at me but refused to come near. It took me around 20 minutes to get near them -- they kept running away. However, eventually I made friends with them and then they wouldn't leave me alone. It was a very different feeling having kids afraid of me. When it was our turn to eat we were escorted to a table. You eat, then hand an envelope with money to the bride or groom and then leave. It was a fun experience.

I posted more pictures on my Picasa for those of you who like to look at pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/Beca.Osmond/DaSWedding#