Pchum Ben and Saying Goodbye

In the final week of training, we enjoyed our first Cambodia holiday with our host families.  Pchum Ben is a fifteen day holiday, wherein Cambodian pay respects to their ancestors and the local monks by offering food and thanks in a variety of traditional Buddhist ceremonies.  For our family, Pchum Ben meant a two hour Sunday morning spent offering food (rice, tea, etc), money and prayers to some of the monks from our nearby wat (pagoda) at our family altar (like a mini pagoda across the street from our house).  Chris and I were in many ways the spectacle for the extended family in attendance and our grandmother made sure that we sat close to the monks as they prayed for health, safety, a good harvest and general well being of our “family.”

A week later, our grandmother’s three grandchildren were staying with us and roused us at four in the morning to attend one of the biggest ceremonies of Pchum Ben- the offering of food and water to ghosts in various places around the local wat. 

Once again, Chris and I proved quite the spectacle for the hundreds of Cambodians gathered in the darkness.  After a bit of praying, incense burning, and general hilarity as I observed Chris trying to sit properly on the hard ground, the ceremony of throwing food for the ghosts began. So, covered in the smoke from the incense, Chris and I proceeded to walk three times around the wat, shaking bottled water and throwing fruit in eight distinct places around the wat for the ghosts to enjoy. 

Ending our training with our host families during the week of Pchum Ben was bittersweet- our final days were spent with many people, in a formerly quiet house that was louder than we’d ever heard it, enjoying food and being pressured to drink beer.  You know.

Our grandmother was so happy having her grandchildren, their spouses and children all around, and when the day before our departure arrived, it became clear that all of the children- Chris and I included- would be leaving the same time the next day.  I was shocked to see tears spring to our grandmother’s eyes and slip down her cheeks, especially as we gave her the small gifts we had bought for her to thank her for the previous two months.  She made us promise to return to visit, and made sure we knew that we were now her “goan”- children- too and she loved us as she loved her other children.

There aren’t many more words about this topic- saying goodbye was harder that we imagined, but we’re lucky because our permanent site is in the same province and just thirty minutes away from our training village and our Cambodian grandmother.