We All Talked, You Can Marry.
The day was Thursday (maybe), the year is 2013, and the place is Kam Pong Cham Cambodia. I had first gone to Kam Pong Cham in 2012 and stayed for a month, a year later I went back to stay for the summer. A few disclaimers: names have been changed, and I learned a lot since then (THANKFULLY), but yea, I pretty much just showed up that next summer like “Hi, it’s me again, I am here to stay for the next few months, and also I forgot no one speaks English and also I forgot I don’t speak Khmer, but let’s smile at each other and use our hands a lot!!!”
So I’m in Kamp Pong Cham, staying with the M family, and in the house with me during this time we have Mr. M (who I call pastor, long story), his wife, who is a beautiful, smart business owner and basically the leading wedding planner of the greater Phnom Penh area, Mr. M’s mother, who very much loves me and brings me noodles every morning and squeezes me, and I will later find out why, Mr. M’s step father, who is the most in shape and good looking 70+ man out there, and Mr. M’s 4 year old daughter who is the only one I can remotely communicate with. Every once and a while during that summer Mr. M’s sister would come to visit from college, and she was very interesting and cool and I had these visions of her showing me new cooking techniques so I could try my hand at these delicious meals with her, but then I would walk over to the kitchen, look at the pan and everything going on and be like “wow way too hard, and way too hot outside, where is your 4-year-old niece, gotta go, bye.”
As I mentioned, I was there to visit and to speed us up to where we need to be in this story, our days mostly consisted of me tagging along with whatever Mr. M had planned that day and talking to myself at night to remind myself that I still did know how to speak in at least one language. It’s hard to imagine but even back in 2013 it was more difficult to get wifi everywhere so I was also without internet or communication for most of this time. About 3 weeks into the summer Mr. M asked me if I wanted to go to Siem Reap to spend some time with his uncle and their family up there. His uncle was an English speaking tour guide for all over Siem Reap and especially great at giving tours of Angkor Wat. I had been before but I figured it would mix up the pace and be nice to meet more of the family. Mr. M was excited I said yes, and let me know when I would catch the bus for the 6-hour journey and ended the conversation with, “Also, my brother who studies in Phnom Penh will join you so you are not travelling alone.”
I caught the bus at the end of the week early in the morning. The bus had already gone through Phnom Penh so the brother, who I can now introduce as V was already on board waiting for me. “Hello, Elaina, I got you an American sandwich.” I bit down into my mayonnaise sandwich (that was it, only mayonnaise) and settled in for the ride. V was extremely nice and very attentive. While he did know English, turns out he didn’t remember much of it because he was very diligently learning Japanese now. I took all the long eye gazing during the bus ride as his attempt to recall an English word. We got to his uncle’s home, and his family graciously welcomed us, had a room for each of us and had dinner ready. The next day our tour of Siem Reap started, and I will say the uncle is an amazing tour guide. The uncle dropped us off that afternoon at a Cambodian Culture center where, I kid you not, we spent 6 hours watching plays on Cambodian culture. V kept getting me ice creams and also at lunch he cut my food and I truly thought he assumed I was sickly or something and it was his turn to watch me and give his brother (Mr. M) a break.
The next day we all went to lunch, with V and his uncle and the family. Now here is where things speed up really quickly. At lunch Mr. M called me and said something along the lines of “we talked, my mother is very happy, and we have decided you both can marry.” I immediately started laughing, I did not know what to do, but also I did not use any words bc I did not want to let the family know what we were discussing, V was sitting right next to me so I just kept laughing and eventually kept saying, no no no no. I don’t know how I held it all in, but I got off the phone and acted like nothing happened. We were leaving later that afternoon and my plan was to go back to Mr. M’s house, explain there had been some miscommunication (somehow with only using my hands) and then make a plan to head back to the city early, bc I felt like it was time to leave. V would take the bus all the way into the city, so I felt good that we were going to have some space and get off at different spots.
My plan for the actual bus ride was to fake sleep the whole 6 hours. Eventually one of my eyes popped open and V was right there gazing into it. “Hello, Elaina.” And then he did it, he popped the question. “What would you do if somebody in Cambodia, loved you very much and wanted to marry you?” I wish I could tell you what I said but it was a real black out moment, I just said something along the lines of, there are so many women in Cambodia you can get to know and we don’t know each other yet. He then gave me a bracelet and put it on me.
After getting back to Kam Pong Cham, I was greeted with the biggest squeeze from the mother. I had the next few days to explain how I would not be marrying V, and the response was we understand but why did you just come back to Kam Pong Cham alone as a single woman? Ah, lesson in awareness learned! There were no hard feelings but I still felt like it was best for me to head back to the city, and I decided to use the rest of my month I had left to travel around some.
If you’ve ever had an experience like this you will understand my next move, and if you have not you will think I am the worst. I knew if I told the family I was going to travel around alone they would worry and it wouldn’t go well, so I told them my flight was heading out the next morning. Mr. M then borrowed a van and invited about 15 of his family and friends to come see me off at the airport. And yep, you guessed it, we were also going to meet up with V so he could see me off. The next morning about 15 people showed up in a van very dressed up and ready for my big send off. (let me remind you again, I had no flight or a plan to fly out). We headed to the airport, and on the way picked up V. When we got to the airport we all got out, there were tears and V knitted me a scarf and put it around me neck. After all the see-you-laters and hugs, I grabbed my bags, looked back again, and walked inside the airport. I looked out the window waving, and once the van pulled away completely out of sight, I walked to the other side of the airport, exited the door, got in a cab and went to Mad Monkey hostel.
