Birthday parties are a little different here....

So one of the advantages of living in a tropical country is that you can always have your birthday parties outside and wear shorts to dinner. The other, as you can see, is that you can invite your friendly neighborhood elephant to come by and give the kids a ride. Sambou the elephant normally hangs out at Wat Phnom right by the Embassy and is fed bananas and sugar cane by kids all day so this was a nice diversion for him. He actually loves his job and you can see him jogging to work in the mornings with a smile on his face, literally. Evanelle was a little spooked by the big animal - especially when his snout was rooting around in her hair for a banana but Kai was all over it. He was the first kid up (much to Mom's chagrin) and wanted a second ride as well - fearless that kid... Also a picture of the tallest Cambodian woman ever! She's almost six feet tall and works as a nanny for friends of ours.

More random shots of Kai and Eva running around - she can almost catch him now and as you can see is pretty feisty. The other shots are from a circus performance we sponsored that was designed to teach Cambodian Buddhists about the traditions of the Cham Muslim minority in the country - about 3000 showed up and most had to stand on their motos or (as you can see) on their bicycles to get a glimpse of the stage. The kid standing on the bike was there for about an hour - amazing balance.

Cookie monster

A couple of shots of Kai's mischievous expressions and his favorite new cookie monster shirt. He's starting to pick his clothes out on his own and this one always seems to be at the top of the pile. Also some pics from a trip I took up north to Kampong Chhnang to visit with the Muslim minority group known as the Kan Imam San. They have a very interesting background, brought here hundreds of years ago by a previous Cambodian King, and they worship a mix of Islam, animism and Hinduism. Their mosque looks a bit like a Buddhist Wat and they only pray once a week - at noon on Fridays. The celebration pictured here is the 'maloat' which is their day to remember the birth of Mohammed. It is also the day their newborns get their first haircut and are named. Cambodia has so many layers - each time I think I get it I run into a new group with fascinating traditions and customs. The girls in the picture are part of a program my shop runs which funds English instruction for them after their regular school. They are actually quite fluent!