Parties Are the Way to Say Goodbye

I hate goodbyes. Like seriously hate them. I kind of just keep saying oh I'll see you again before I leave, sometimes knowing I probably won't, just to avoid goodbyes. I wanted a good way to say goodbye to my village and my family, friends, and students there. What's a better way than throwing a party? We threw a party for ourselves because we wanted to introduce our family and my students to some westernness. We invited quite a few people and had a great turnout. Thanks muchly to our three closest volunteer buddies who came and partied and helped out.

We bought the a #10 can of spaghetti sauce and added some spices and cooked up some garlic bread thanks to our #10 can of powdered butter my in laws sent us. Ah the life of trying to make western food in a non western country. They don't really eat with forks much in Cambodia, so we rolled Asian style and everyone ate the spaghetti with chopsticks. Our host mom even let us pull out the fancy chopsticks we brought them from China.
I had recently bought two copies of Harry Potter #1 in Khmer. There aren't a lot of story books in Khmer, so kids don't love reading there. My girls devoured Harry Potter. They spent most of the party watching the first movie, and made sure to get the rest of the movies from me before I left. One of my presents to my co-teacher was some books to start a library at her school. I made sure to include Harry Potter #2 in Khmer.

After eating, we had to of course, take about a thousand pictures.

 I wanted to do something special for them before going away. What means special to me? Dessert. Dessert they've never had before. Cakes in Cambodia are not nearly as tasty as cake like we think of. So I made them a funfetti cake and some delicious cream cheese frosting. Man, it was the first real cake I'd had in a year and it was freaking delicious.

Then my students made me feel so loved. They showered me with gifts. The day before the party some of them asked me if I had a weight limit for the airplane, because they had a gift for me. I kept hearing them say 15 pounds. I was wondering what the heck they had bought, that was that heavy. They didn't buy something that heavy, they were just all amazing and all bought me gifts. Seriously, a teacher couldn't ask for more amazing loving students.

 And then we do only as we know how to do. We danced the night away. My girls from Camp GLOW taught everyone else how to do the macarena. It was pretty ballin.