Christmas In Cambodia

Was definitely different for us. First of all it felt nothing like it. We both come from the Midwest where there are four seasons, and you can kind of feel it in the air when the holiday season is arriving. Not to mention this is primarily a Buddhist country and people don’t celebrate Christmas here.

However, I guess the last time we were in Siem Reap, I was walking through one of the ex-pat grocery stories and it was playing Christmas music over the loudspeakers. It occurred to me then, that, -- oh yea. It’s December!

Many people know about Christmas, and surprisingly more people know the lyrics to jingle bells than you’d think. Although- in my open hour’s class I have for students, I had to go through the lyrics and explain to them what a one-horse-open sleigh is, and what jingle bells are.

Will did a little special lesson on Santa Clause; but I believe his attempt to teach about St. Nick left him with more blank stares with the student’s heads tilted sideways in bewilderment as he tried to explain the magical concept in all of their second language. I mean, it’s this guy- who flies around in a red sleigh with magical reindeer and brings presents to everyone, and comes down the fireplace (note: most people don’t know what a fireplace is or has ever seen one, so you have to go through explaining what a fireplace is, as well as reindeer, as well as a sleigh) --- and then when he got through that concept….. the students started to get worried that Santa might get burnt if he came down the fireplace…and I guess it was a downwards spiral from there…..and he decided that maybe the idea was more than it was worth.

It’s just hard to know sometimes what will be an attention grabbing lesson and what is going to leave you hanging with the crickets chirping in the background. You’d think magical Santa would be interesting. I suppose – it’d be much easier if you were fluent in Khmer to try to explain it. Anyway, a lesson WE are still trying to learn.

Anyhow--- to celebrate we decided not to give each other gifts and save that money for traveling in the future – and rather buy a roasted chicken from the market and a few beers (we normally do not drink at all at our site. It’s more of a reputation thing…first of all – it is not really culturally acceptable for women to drink; and then being teachers at the school it is also important for us to keep a well respected image… so actually we have never drank at all at our site. Not to mention, for the most part EVERY one knows everything about us and what we’re up to. How can they not. We’re the only white, foreigners in the town. They’re always very curious. They know what I spend my money on in the market every time I go. So they’re bound to find out how much alcohol we consume as well, and it’s better for us if we don’t consume any.) ALSO – I do have to say that we both feel really pretty healthy & pure, without having an occasional beer….and add an average of 9hrs of sleep every night, we feel pretty darn good in the morning. ANYhow – Will bought a few beers – and then we also bought a roasted chicken from the market. I guess our town is famous for their flattened, roasted chickens. They cut the chicken right down the breastbone, and then flatten them between two bamboo sticks and roast them over hot coals. And boy are they delicious!! They are actually kinda spendy – ours cost $5 for a medium sized chicken (just for a reference, we can get a really good American style large Pizza in Siem Reap for $7, and we only do that when we want to splurge); BUT we figured it was Christmas, so we’d celebrate with that; and make ourselves a side of garlic mashed potatoes. It wasn’t your typical Christmas dinner, but it was quite delicious. We were going to watch the sunset on the west side of town over the rice paddy- but it happened to be cloudy that day – so we just enjoyed our meal on the patio.

Both sets of parents called us later that evening and told us of the temperatures they were experiencing that were hovering around the zero mark (above/below). It was nice to chat with all of them; but I think it wasn’t until we got calls from them that it really sunk in it was Christmas time and a feeling of sadness set in….just thinking about how far away we are from everyone that’s important to us, especially when they’re all gathering together. We knew that was part of the deal though, when we signed up – and in all honesty, time is going by really quickly. We’ve been in country 5 months already. Now we’ve essentially got just over a year and a half yet. But that doesn’t mean we can’t feel a little homesick especially around this time of year.

Oh well. Jan 4th is coming up (which is my dad’s 59th b-day!) and it also is the mark of all of us K2 volunteers being at our permanent site for 3 months, and after that date we are allowed to leave our provinces. So I’m pretty sure I smell a reunion of all of us volunteers in K2 gathering – hopefully at the ocean when the temps rise a bit maybe at the end of Jan or in Feb. sometime. Should be good.

Anyhow- we hope everyone had a Merry Christmas back home and hope that you can make 2009 a memorable year.

All the best – steph & will