Saturday 5th February: Giants, Rabbits and BBQ

It's now my fifth day in Siem Reap and I have been very busy puppeting away. On Wednesday I met the people from the Giant Puppet project, which is organised by a group of volunteers including Jig, an artist from the UK. We are also working with some young Cambodian art students who are extremely talented at what they do (as you will see in the photos). Over the next 2 weeks, we will be working with children from various schools and orphanages to create larger-than-life puppets to showcase in a night parade. The puppets are made using hundreds of rattan cane/bamboo sticks, reels of masking tape, buckets of PVA glue and loads of brightly coloured tissue paper. I'm looking forward to seeing the puppets all lit up!

This year the parade's main puppets are based on a traditional Khmer story called "Moni Mekhala and Ream Eyso" (The Ocean Goddess and the Storm Giant). From what I have heard, it is a folk story about a goddess who carries an orb of water and encounters a giant. The giant takes his axe and splits the orb in two, releasing a shower of rain. It only took 3 days to create the giant and the goddess, and they both stand about 6 metres tall!!

Giant Rabbits

One big highlight so far has been working with a group of ex-pat children and kids from the Cambodian Landmine Museum to make "Judge Rabbit" (a traditional Khmer archetype who teaches children about morals). I met a very sweet girl, who by the end of the day called me her sister. Since we were making a rabbit, she taught me a song called "Bohn jia tun saide" ("I am the rabbit"). She and her friends found it extremely entertaining to hear me try and sing it back to them. They enjoyed looking through some photos I had brought of myself and my family, friends and puppets. The album included a picture of me holding a traditional Japanese bunraku puppet in a kimono. She liked the picture so much that I gave it to her. The next day, she came up to me and gave me a doll. It didn't take me long to realise it was a barbie doll wearing a traditional Korean 'hambok' dress (I smiled at the irony that the one gift I received from a Cambodian child was a Korean doll!). It was such a beautiful gesture though, and I plan to keep my doll as a very special memento of my incredible time here.

Khmer BBQ

It hasn't all been about puppets this week though - we also went out for dinner the other night to Khmer BBQ, which was a delicious (and sweaty!) culinary experience (all you can eat for $3!). Each table had a terracotta stand, which sits a steaming hot BBQ plate with hot coals underneath. There was also a buffet where you could get an assortment of meat, seafood, vegetables and noodles to cook on the hot plate (the hot plate is also surrounded by a mini 'moat' to catch all the juices - you also pour in stock to make a delicious soup). I found the experience similar to Korean BBQ, though with slightly different sauces - my favourite new discovery being freshly squeezed lime juice with pepper and a pinch of salt. Another incredible dipping sauce was a chilli-garlic concoction (why is it that the best sauces usually come in slightly suspect, non-labelled containers?). Regardless of the fact that the sauce made my eyes weep and lips go a tad numb, the important thing was that there was a party in my mouth - and I was invited.