Bookended by death The New Years celebrations in our village were muted. In previous years the three days have been a raucous rollercoaster of constant activity and sound. This year the Grim Reaper, and possibly a new air of sophistication among the Phnom Penh returnees, reduced them to a pale shadow of that.
On my perambulations with Mr. Butch I came across no checkpoints manned by talcum powder yielding teens,and observed few traditional games being played.
On the first two nights the sound systems did indeed pound deafeningly into the early hours, but it was noticeable that hip-hop now dominated the playlists. On the third, when traditionally my family host dancing, the music had just started, when the news of the second death brought it to a sudden halt. It was strange indeed to drift of to sleep with nothing to mark the New Years arrival but silence.