Cambodia has two New Years celebrations. One is the standard New Years for the Gregorian calendar and the other is the Khmer New Year which signifies the end of the harvest season. This year the Khmer New Year started on 14 April at about 07:35.
Being the only person in the volunteer group not living in a hotel, I offered my house to the group for a New Years Eve party. There was a small group of five volunteers that volunteered to help set up the party.
Figure 1 setting up the games
Figure 2 preparing the food
Cambodians would celebrate the New Year on the 14th in the morning. We decided to have a traditional western New Years Eve party. A Cambodian party has a lot of food and beer. Volunteers in Cambodia are living on $343 a month, even here that's not much. So we opted for simple fruit snacks and to provide ice, people would bring their own drinks.
My landlord pointed out that on the 13th of April there should be an offering in front of my shrine. He placed a nice bunch of bananas there for me. For the party I plugged in the lights on the shrine and we had flashing lights.
Figure 3 The shrine with offering
I told my landlord we were having a party. About 10 minutes later he came to the door with two stacks of plates and a pile of silverware, and then his son came along with a sack of chopsticks. We were set. Two of the volunteers had purchased party lights in Phnom Penh and the brought them along.
We had a great evening.
Figure 4 Happy New Year
The party closed down about midnight. That is very late for Cambodia. Because of the heat, people are at home by about 20:00 and they get up early, 05:30 or 6:00.
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