Music blares over speakers set up high on a stage. Lights are flashing as the band plays, and girls dance on stage. Bright lights on stands are set up around the dance floor to capture the action. People are crammed into every corner of the room, seated around circular tables, or dancing around a table on the dance floor. Food and beverages are moving and flowing all around the brightly decorated pink and yellow tent.
I find myself standing in the middle of it, it's hard to breath. People are moving all around, sweat beading around my face, body heat radiating off of all the bodies. I spin around to find the exit, and spot the opening in the tent. Freedom and fresh air await. Sabrina is at my side, and we breath in the fresh air, and marvel at the colorful fabric, and silver painted bananas.
We decide to walk back into the chaotic room. Tenatively, we step inside. The lights are glaring once again, a wall of heat, the smell of sweat and fish mingle through the air. Music thuds and the bass beats through the floor.
Suddenly, there is a tight grasp on my wrist. It isn't Sabrina.
My arm is tightly bound in the hand of a very eager looking Cambodian man. I quickly glance over at Sabrina, my heart racing, and find that she too, is locked in his vice grip on her arm. We try to plead him to let go and let us sit down, but he will not take no for an answer. His grip does not loosen.
He walks us forward, one hand on my wrist, and his other hand clenched around Sabrina's wrist. We stop at the edge of the lights. Waiting. Sweat begins to bead around my forehead again. My heart is beating, wondering what we are waiting for.
Bound.
Held hostage.
Then, the music starts and we push out onto the dance floor. At a Cambodian wedding.
Now this may not be what you are thinking, but these events did happen. Our team had the awesome opportunity of attending a Cambodian wedding this week. It was wild! Pink and yellow fabric are wrapped around the walls, tables and chairs. The guests are decked out in their finest, most sparkling and radiant clothes. Hair is piled as high as hairspray will hold it on the women's heads, and men don their best shoes on the dance floor.
We were able to eat fish, pigs feet, duck, fish ball soup, rice, noodles, and have an endless supply of 7 Up to begin with. Our team and another team we are working with sat around circular tables with lazy Susan's in the center, filled with our feast. We took in all of the sights with our eyes as we filled our stomachs with delicious Cambodian delicacies.
The dancing was the most adventurous part, and Sabrina and I were truly dragged out onto the dance floor. Thankfully, Tom joined in with us in the festivities as we danced around the table. Sabrina tried to escape once to go back to sit at our table, at which the man who brought us up promptly ran after her and brought her back out for the remainder of the song.
Cambodian weddings are quite the ordeal, and it was a blessing to experience the culture in a new way. The bride changes into seven different dresses, they have ceremonies that last a long time, and they dance the night away. Seeing Cambodian dancing was really interesting as well. We danced around a table, stepping a certain ways, twisting our hands, trying to mimic the dancers on stage.
All in all, the Cambodian wedding hostage experience brought joy and laughter to my heart, and left me with a fond memory, and a funny story to carry away with me, of how we were dragged onto the dance floor and couldn't get away.
It truly was a night I will never forget. Oh Cambodia, you've captured my heart already.
