a sweet day

today was one of those sundays i love. lots of angkoi laing-ing (sit play-ing ---hanging out----), and delicious things to eat.

i woke up early to make brownies with my fantastic program manager, who is in town for the two week training of the new group of volunteers.

we split the batch and both of us could barely contain our excitement to have a brownie, even though it was only nine in the morning.

i then took advantage of the cooler morning and biked to visit a friend- a twelfth grader who attended my camp glow last june, and her mother.  they run the teacher guest house in town, and last weekend when i stopped by, they gifted me a couple of new nail polishes. i returned the favor with three of my own, sent from america.

in the afternoon, after two hilarious guys from the new group of volunteers swung by, chris and i biked to the "i love you mart" to enjoy a cool beverage and free fans.  while there, we were graced with the presence of three additional new volunteers, who basically had me laughing until my stomach hurt for a good hour.

finally, we rounded out the day with a surprise and welcome visit from our friend and former khmer tutor.  she brought us pineapple from northern province battambang- "much sweeter than the sour pineapple" found in our province, says she- and saw that chris had bought a pumpkin.  while he had planned on making a dessert concoction of some sort, she proceeded to help us use the left over rinds to make a khmer dessert- bongaim sngaam la po- literally, "dessert boil(ed) pumpkin."

shredding the coconut meat.

squeezing the coconut meat to make a thick coconut milk. pumpkin rinds in the pan to the right.

boiling the coconut water and pumpkin until the pumpkin is soft...

tasting after a hefty number of tablespoons of sugar have been added. "pa-aim?" "pa-aim kroo-up kroan!" (sweet? sweet enough!")

the last step: adding the best and thickest coconut milk from the first squeezing.

delicious boiled pumpkin in a coconut milk and sugar bath.

and that, in a very wordy nutshell, was my sunday.