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22 Sept 2002 |
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| In addition to Khmer New Year, there's another major festival in Cambodia and it kind of crept up on us unannounced - I guess everyone thought we we would know about it. Pchum Ben lasts for two weeks and involves a lot of temple visiting and praying to ancestors. Schools close for a few days and the towns empty as everyone goes back to the villages. It came at a rather inconvenient time as we were desperately trying to finish teaching the basic course at our new schools - luckily the trainees were happy to come to classes during the festival. Our student Phallin invited us to go to the temple with her and her family on Sunday, where we would see hundreds of people giving food (and money!) to the monks. On these occasions every one turns out in their best clothes and it's a lovely sight to see the women arriving at the temple carrying tiffin carriers full of food. Not many men bother to go though - apparently this is womens's work! Of course everything took longer than we had been led to believe, so in the end we had to leave Grandma at the temple and head off to Chay Voloman, where we had a lunch appointment with another student, Ouk Phally, and his family... | ||||