National Victory Against Genocide Day

January 7th was National Victory Against Genocide Day in Cambodia. It marked the 30th anniversary of the downfall of the Khmer Rouge regime. To celebrate, my Operational District Director (the director of all the all the health centers and hospitals in Angkor Chey District Kampot Province) threw a party. My health center, hospital, and neighboring health centers all went to Takeo Province. Everyones’s families came and we had a fancy dinner, danced, and played games.




The food was good. There was a pig roasting when we got there, and people were fascinated by it. Everyone wanted his or her picture in front of the pig. At one point a woman I did not know came up to my host sister and said “The foreigner is beautiful, I want my picture with her in front of the pig.” An interesting request for many reasons including 1) I had never met her and 2) it was my camera so she would never actually see the picture. A lot of things were served that I had never seen or eaten before, so my host sister had to show me how to eat things. The table thought it was very funny.






In between dancing sessions, we would play a game that I never quite figured out the rules for, but I still won two boxes of soap.