Happy Merry Christmas from Green Gecko!

While Christmas fever approaches in many other parts of the world, it is a holiday that is largely overlooked in Buddhist Cambodia. The end of the calendar year is still a time for celebration here though, and the children at Green Gecko have already enjoyed not one, but two sets of Khmer Buddhist holidays!

Pchum Ben is an ancestors' festival celebrated for fifteen days in the tenth month of the Khmer calendar. This year, the festival culminated with the holiday falling on September 26-28.

Pchum Ben is a special time when Khmer people pay respect to their ancestors. It is a time of year when the ghosts of the dead are believed to be able to return to Earth. During Pchum Ben, many Cambodians come together at their local temples to throw sticky rice mixed with sesame seeds, which is believed to feed the spirits. Monks also chant overnight in the ancient Buddhist language, Pali. The last three days of the holiday are especially significant as people also bring offerings of food for the monks at this time.

Bon Om Teuk, or Water Festival, falls in mid-November, and celebrates the reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap, the biggest freshwater lake in south east Asia. In the rainy season, which starts in June, the Tonle Sap grows and the flooded waters of the lake fill the dry season streets of many of the 'floating' villages along the lake. In November though, the flow of the lake changes direction - it decreases in size dramatically, and flows into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. The three day festival includes boat races, traditional games and celebrations.

School holidays fall during both Pchum Ben and Water Festival in Cambodia, and many of the Gecko kids go home to celebrate these special times with their families. For some of the kids, this means a short trip on their bicycles or by tuk-tuk within in Siem Reap town - but others may travel for up to eight hours on a bus to reach their families in the countryside!

For some of the kids though, Green Gecko is their only home. If they do not have families to go home to, or if it is not safe to do so, they instead enjoy a fun program of holiday activities, which they get to help decide on. The Geckos absolutely love to go on 'dar leng', which literally means ‘to walk and play’, and commonly involves a fun excursion, or just opportunity to hang out in town – particularly popular with teenagers the world over ! Some ever-popular activities include swimming at the Baray (an ancient Angkorian dam that is Siem Reap's equivalent of the beach), roller-blading at the local outdoor skating rink or heading to a shopping centre to see what they can spend their pocket money on – although many of the younger kids have just as much, if not more fun riding up and down on the escalators!

All of the children are very proud of their culture and traditions too, and every holiday also involves trips to nearby pagodas and temples to take part in Buddhist ceremonies, whether with their families, siblings or their Green Gecko aunties and uncles.

Wherever you are and however you celebrate, we hope you enjoy a happy and relaxing holiday break before the New Year begins.

As the tuk tuk drivers and market sellers often call out to foreigners in Cambodia at this time of year, a “happy merry Christmas!” to all our of our Gecko friends celebrating the holidays around the world.

Wherever you are in the world this festive season, we hope you feel as grateful and hopeful as we do.

Much Gecko love and gratitude for your support in 2011,

Tania, Rem and all of the Green Gecko gang