Khmer New Year

For Khmer New Year, April 14-16, I was able to celebrate multiple times with my students, coworkers, and fellow volunteers. For the schools in Cambodia most students are given 2 weeks off for the holiday, so our school celebration was on April 4th. I arrived to the school around 7am and some of the students instantly found me and made sure I was taken care of. We began closer to 8am walking from the entrance of the school towards one of the classes with offerings in hand. Most of students held plants with various amounts of Riel attached which would be given as offerings. One of the students had me help her with hers, and when we got to the room she showed me the proper way to give the offering before we went outside to join the rest of the students. Soon after monks from a nearby Pagoda arrived and we continued the offerings but this time it was through food. Similar to what I experienced for Pchum Ben, you would approach the table with a bowl of rice and Riel and scoop rice into each bowl as well as place a note into each bowl. At the end you would place whatever rice was left over into a big bowl, and probably over 200 students and teachers did this. Once everyone had given their offerings the monks moved to one of the classrooms where the teachers were able to sit, myself included. For about 40 minutes they prayed, chanted, and we were able to give additional offerings. Towards the end the teachers would give these additional offerings, and one of the older women made sure that I was involved and showed me where to sit and what to do, it was very sweet. It felt great to be included despite the massive language barrier. After this was done the fun began! The students began to play various games such as tag and the Khmer version of duck duck goose. Then the rain started... It didn't just rain it poured, but that didn't stop the students from having their fun. They continued to run around in the rain, play tug of war, and even roll around in the rain puddles. It was fun to watch from afar with the other teachers! Then the baby powder came out, which I later found out is something that everyone plays with for Khmer New Year. You'll see people walking around with powder all over their faces, sometimes plain white, and some are neon colored which is really cool. At the school one of the girls had baby powder and it became a game to see who could get baby powder on who's face. One of the student's grandma even took me over to a fellow teacher to get him with baby powder, so it's definitely something that multiple generations find joy in doing! In the afternoon all the teachers had lunch together which was a great way to end the celebrations.

Celebrating with my coworkers was very similar. We had our party on April 8th and spent the morning making a sign and blowing up balloons. There were stations set up for the monks to sit at in our office and mats set out for us to sit on the ground. We went through various offerings, prayers, and chants, just like we did at the school but before the monks left they did something very different. My coworkers had lined up their motos and bikes and they kneeled behind them. The monks then proceeded to splash water over them from a giant bucket, and it was something that kind of reminded me of a baptism but in the sense that they are starting the year off new and with a clean slate. It was really interesting and I'm glad that I was able to experience this. We ended our day with delicious food and celebrated as one big team.

For Khmer New Year most people will take the full week off, as my team did which meant I also got the whole week off! My fellow volunteers and I decided to spend the week together in the south of Cambodia on Koh Rong island. It was very nice to be able to experience yet another part of Cambodia, and I absolutely fell in love with the islands. Fun fact this is where they filmed Survivor season 31 and 32 so that made it even more cool! Haha. While there are a lot of locals that live on the island, it is also a popular location for expats so we were able to meet a lot of people from different parts of the world while still getting the Khmer New Year experience! One of my highlights was going on a boat tour and visiting a local village and pagoda. We were able to see some of the products that the locals make, get our faces all colorful with baby powder, and see the inside of a beautiful pagoda. As a team we all had such an amazing time, we were able to meet some really cool people, and I saw some of the most amazing beaches and sunsets/sunrises I've ever seen. I'm so lucky to have been able to experience this and would go back in a heartbeat!

Returning to my office after the holiday brought with it my 26th birthday and 8 month mark in Cambodia. The 2 1/2 months left include a handful of Khmer holidays so I'm really excited to be able to get some last minute travel in! I'm looking forward to being home but trying to be present and enjoy these last couple of months I have here. Love to all! xoxo