khmer sources

Today is Luem Voun’s day. It is a clear and warm Saturday morning in Siem Reap just before 6am and Voun’s family is gathering to celebrate her life. There are party tents and stages, decorations and musicians, an altar and offerings; all this arranged around and underneath the traditional Khmer wooden house which belongs to her eldest daughter, 56-year-old Som Savath.
After months of planning for this celebration, Savath is happy, busy guiding the festivities and enjoying this wonderful moment in her family’s life. Today is the first day of a two-day celebration, a Bon. More accurately a Bon Chamroeun Ayut, a celebration of an elder’s life, her mother’s life.

Lok Yeay (Grandmother) Voun, 76, has one surviving sister of an original three—her five brothers have all passed away—she also has nine children, and her daughter Som Savath, has twelve, so this is a big celebration for a big family.
One of Voun’s grandchildren explains the significance of a Bon, "When we are young our parents give us life. They give us food, clothes, a house, an education, everything. When they are older we must show them respect and offer thanks and honor them for all they have done for us."
Cambodian people love to celebrate and nothing has been left to chance; more than two hundred people will congregate for music, ceremony, prayer, chanting, eating, and enjoying being together as a family and as a community.

All morning guests fill the tents. There are a lot of people to greet and to share some time with, all in celebration of Luem Voun. She has lived through so much; so much history, so much change, so many trials and challenges and so many joys.
Savath’s siblings and children have all contributed to the efforts in preparing for their grandmother’s Bon, and all the women work together like a well-oiled machine. The nuns look like they have been doing this forever, and many of them have. They know exactly what to do and when, and they enjoy helping the family honor a respected sister, an elder woman in the circle.
The children run and play throughout the day and only need to be reminded to show respect once or twice, usually partly as a lesson and partly just so the adults can have fun watching them squirm a little

And so the celebration continues, it rains and people nap; the monks arrive and are given gifts; they honor Luem Voun with chanting, are fed and head back to the pagoda for a mid-day rest—they will return and continue late into the evening. The daughters bathe their mother, a ritual to show gratitude for all the love and care they received growing up, and a way to give in return.
Cambodia is a country of rhythms. There is rhythm in everything, in the music, in the food, the colors and smells, language and weather, the day, the seasons and in the lives of a family.

The afternoon folds into the evening and a heavy tropical rain begins to fall. Boys and girls scurry to help protect their elders from dripping tents and small streams begin to form in the sand.