Cambodian’s call their place of birth and family home their
homeland. Ella and I were lucky enough to be invited to one such homeland over
Khmer New Year – one of the most important holidays to Cambodian people. This
year it has become the year of the snake and everyone was very excited. There
was a mass exodus from the city at the beginning of the holiday and you get a
full 3 days off work (or more) so why not get out of the city for a while?
Our friend Pheakna works for a partner organisation,
Skateistan, who teach skateboarding and other skills to underprivileged
children whilst training local youth workers to become youth leaders in their
communities. We also took one of the girls from our shelter, who couldn’t go
home over New Year. His homeland was only 30 kilometres out of Phnom Penh, but
it felt a lot further and completely different to the fast paced city life. I
certainly managed to fit in well, having a nap on the second day from 8-9.30am
after we had to get up at 6am to go to the market. And there were plenty of
other times available for naps if desired.
The house was a traditional Cambodian house; all made of
wood, with a lower open, communal area and the main upper room on stilts. They
had quite a big garden full of mango trees and a working pump for all their
water needs (including for the bucket toilet and shower – nice and cold!) There
were the usual chickens roaming around and thankfully their cockerel was not
very good at his job, so didn’t wake us up at 5am – although the gecko on our
wall did a good job at around 3am.
On arrival we went to three other houses in the village to
meet relatives and just some other members of the community who welcomed us in.
We met a lot of small children singing Gangnam Style and babies, including one
who had ears bigger than Ella. What fascinated people most was our noses which
they loved (as they are so huge) and also wanted to swop our skin for theirs.
They were very excited about Ella’s sun cream and she left it with them,
explaining that it is not whitening but simply protects you from the sun and
getting burnt.
The village celebrations for Khmer New Year were all held at
the Pagoda. On both evenings from about 4pm they had a love band with many
singers who continued on till about 11pm. Everyone joined in the traditional
dancing which was done around an offering of fruit and drinks. It was a lively
atmosphere with lots of young people dressed up in smart clothes (as well as
one man in a women’s dress!) The dancing is quite slow paced with a lot of intricate
hand movements, but it’s quite easy to pick up the dance steps as it is
repetitive.
During the day the main ceremony at the Pagoda consists of
making offerings to the Buddha and to the monks and elderly. We went with
Pheakna’s auntie, cousin and her daughter, who brought a three-tiered food
holder to offer to the monks and elderly. We sat in the beautifully painted
main hall for a while which had many decorations and a happy atmosphere. Next,
we went to offer rice, you put a spoonful of rice in each receptacle along a
row on one side and pray at the end. When you turn back, there were slots for
money on the other side and most people put in 100 riel into each one (about
2.5p). On the other side there was a golden Buddha statue which you would pour
water over to make a blessing. The last activity was to take a bowl of little
stones (gravel) and pour them on sand piles which had incense sticks burning in
them. You threw a handful on each one as you went around and some people put
money and said prayers at each one. There was a lovely atmosphere with music,
many children, balloon sellers and happy monks.
On our trip to the market we picked out two live fish (very
large) from the basin and then the woman would knock it on the head to kill it,
de-scale it in front of you, with pieces flying everywhere and then gut it a
bit – BUT the guts would go in the bag too. Cambodians will eat these parts too
and the inside of the head – a fin doesn’t scare them either. It made for a
delicious dinner though and seemed a better option than the chicken with heads
and feet still on, which would touch the other meat and people would just grab
it for a while and carry on. Not the hygiene standards of a supermarket but
pretty fun.
The final experience I will tell you about is when we had a
few beers with the uncles in the afternoon, one of them made a beer snack of
fried chicken, which included the feet to chew on (as you can’t eat rice when
you drink beer). Many other people popped in and out for a beer, including a
very drunk man with his top off and had white paint on his face. He stumbled
about for a bit and then attempted to wash off the paint, but failing to do so,
stumbled out of the grounds again. They all found it as hilarious as we did and
we were just glad we were not drinking rice wine as we may have been worried it
was the effect of the alcohol otherwise!
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