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| Before the concert |
Last Saturday evening was one of those life long memories.
We went to a concert in Bayon temple featuring a young 13 year old Cambodian girl.
I will start at the beginning which was about 1 month ago.
I was looking at the internet and noticed an ad for an evening concert to be held in the grounds of the Bayon Temples featuring the 13 year old Soprano singer BosbaPAHN and many other famous Cambodian artists. It sounded great and just to be able to go to a concert with the Bayon Temple as a back
drop would be unforgettable. Let alone all the other things.
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| She is only 13 years old |
Cost - OMG only $20. I spoke to Ryllis and Amanda and we decided that we just had to go. I noticed that the most expensive tickets were $20 going down to $5 for the back rows. I decided that we would buy an extra ticket and take along one of the students.
We spoke to the students and of course they all wanted to go as even the $5 tickets were too expensive for some of them.
So, we introduced them to the concept of a lottery. Students paid 1000 reils (50c) to buy one of the 80 tickets and then we would draw out one ticket and they lucky winner would come with the three of us. Well, to explain that the ticket I made for the lottery, was in fact not the ticket to the concert, and that they all were not going was an achievement in language exchange, especially with our very basic English classes. The interpreters were no good as they also did not understand the concept either.
Anyway, we sold the tickets and last Thursday made the draw and one of my students won the ticket and he was on of the two boys from my very basic English class who bought tickets and his level of English is just a bit above my Khmer. Oh well, he as a lovely smile and I knew we would manage. A couple of the students offered to buy his ticket for $10 and he said 'no way'.
By this time all the other teachers had decided that they would like to go to and had bought tickets, so 8 ladies and one student left by a convoy of TUK TUK's about 5pm Saturday night. Seating in Cambodia is first come, first seated no matter what ticket number you have, so we went early and got second row seats and of course the concert started an hour late. It didn't matter as it was a beautiful evening and an English girl (Amanda) was sitting near me, which meant any mosquitoes ate her first.
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| Lighting was fantastic |
The concert was fantastic, the young girl was very professional, the whole show of course was in Khmer so we had no idea what was happening but the music was lovely and the backdrop of the temple was out of this world. The lighting was spectacular and you had to remind yourself that it was real. The concert went for over 2 hours without stopping and I think the hit of the night was a young lass who did a Rap in Khmer.
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| A couple of the boy monkeys |
After the concert Ryllis and Amanda and I took Sokhorn the student out to dinner to a Khmer restaurant and I am sure that it was the first time he had been anywhere like that. The waiters were very curious about him and I noticed they asked him in Khmer what he was doing with 3 women as he certainly didn't look like a toy boy.
Sok horn had ridden to the school on his bicylce so just after midnight he had to get on his bicycle, (thank heavens he had a light on it) and ride 4 kms to his home, to start work a 6 that morning.
He was just about to leave and he turned to me and said "I am so happy, I am so lucky", and then gave me a big grin. It was lovely
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