Mmmmm…snake blood

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be in Philly last night for the big game. Couldn’t pound a Yuengling in the parking lot and then smash the bottle on the ground. Couldn’t help tip over a car. And I wasn’t the only one. Lots of Philly fans are spread out all over the world.

My friend Alicia, who is working for the Clinton Foundation in Cambodia this year, sent me this email this morning:

I found myself drinking the blood of snakes this afternoon, in honor
of the glory of the Phils.

I sat at a table on the Mekong River in Neak Loeung Operational
District, Prey Veng Province, alongside local and national health
administrators who don’t know ‘first base’ from ’short-stop’ from
‘home plate’, and announced our Great City’s Great Triumph.  Shortly
after the meal began, I excitedly proclaimed that “Today is a special
day for my people,” — this is how people talk here — and explained
that the World Series may not actually measure baseball greatness in
all the world, but its importance is of cosmic proportions to
Americans.  Well, it doesn’t take much to animate a Cambodian.  And I
guess wee needed SUMTHIN to cheer … the Phillies would have to do.
And ‘do’ they did.

We drank … and drank.  Round after round.  Fresh snake blood mixed
with a splash of Johnny Walker Black Label whiskey.  I got drunk on
the stuff, and on the hilarity of the scene.  Explaining baseball to
non-English speakers in broken Khmer and through a translator is a
lost cause: “Great American Past-time” doesn’t translate.

The head of the national HIV/AIDS program repeatedly
raised his glass to honor ‘my people’, I was thinking, “I’ll remember
this forever.”

Here’s to the Phils!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s to our people, wherever they may be!