April Cole brought up that I referenced hugging hard yesterday, but didn’t give the back story. Since it’s one of my favorite Cambodia stories I’m happy to share it.
It was low season so we were having a barbecue for our staff at the B&B. We were cooking meat on a stick, potatoes, corn and other delicious early evening edibles. We also had a cooler of beer and the staff were enjoying a few drinks in celebration of a night off.
At the end of the night Chen, Humm’s daughter, who was 5-years-old at the time, came up to me and asked if she could sleep over. Assuming this was a plot thought up by Callie I asked her whose idea it was. She was pretty adamant that it was her idea. I suggested we do it the following night so she could have more time to play, but she stuck her ground. Finally, having a feeling there was more to the story, I asked her why she wanted to stay tonight. She looked a little unsure, but then in her brave little voice said, “Mommy and daddy are having beers.” Suddenly on the alert I asked her what the problem was there. Little Chen leans over and says, “when they have beers they go home and…” she stumbles for the word, “alpoke charan”, she finishes in Khmer, translated, hug hard. After the laughing died down I assured her she was welcome to spend the night and I thanked my lucky stars that I grew up in a house with more than one room.
