We visited the village one last time before the opening ceremony. The whole village was in celebration to welcome new year. In fact, according to P’Nalae, our would-be teacher at the children center, there is no “absolute” new year’s day around this region. Each village take turns to celebrate during early April, so that there will be good meals offered in different villages for people to join.

In the afternoon, they killed a pig at the back of P’Nalae’s house, then the whole village came to help cutting it up into different parts. Meat was shared amongst all villagers, and without question, it was a huge dinner that night, starting with a prayer. They literally eat EVERY part of the generous pig.

All the ladies stayed up late that night to prepare for the celebration next day. They’d pounded up a kind of purple onion (not the edible one), and cook it with eggs to color them red. Also, they mix rice powder with sugar cane juice to be wrapped in banana leaf. Of course, our beloved P’Nalae was not at all an exception!

The next morning started with morning service, and children got red eggs as good luck gift. As soon as the service was over, kids started to hithis/her egg against another’s. This is a small competition to see “Who’s got the toughest egg?!” FYI, I did it with Tuu, and Tuu got stronger one :p

they enjoyed sweets and drinks. ARC made a small contribution by making sweet iced tea for the villagers. Since electricity is mainly just for lighting at night, there is no refridgerators in Siplang. So, iced tea, or, iced ANYTHING is hard to come by.

Someone made a huge potful of noodle in spicy soup, so the party went on and on till after lunch, but we came back around lunch time. It meant a lot as this was our first time to join their new year’s day. We all hope that we will be able to come back again and again to celebrate with them in years to come.