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By Rustom SeegopaulThere is a certain magic about Cambodia that casts a spell on almost everyone who visits this charming yet confusing kingdom. As you ascend to the realm of the gods at the mother of all temples, Angkor Wat, in Siem Reap; a spectacular fusion of symbolism, symmetry and spirituality comes over you.The majestic Angkor Wat temple complex, one of Cambodia’s major tourist attractions. Turn around and descend into the hells of the memories found in SS-21, Tuol Sleng, a museum dedicated to the genocide tantamount to the infamous name of Pol Pot, and come face to face with the Khmer Rouge and its killing machine.I bid you welcome to the mystery that is Cambodia: a country with a history both inspiring and depressing, an intoxicating place where the future is waiting to be shaped. When I was only 16, I ventured to Cambodia to try to do just that: help to shape the future of that country.As I arrived in the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia, in a dusty, smelly bus, completely surrounded and puzzled by the riddles and rhetoric of the Khmer and Thai languages, I wondered what lay in store for me in this land, foreign to me in every possible way. I was to work as a volunteer for a Non Governmental Organization called the Cambodian Organization for Research, Development and Education (CORDE).I had no set purpose when I arrived, apart from the goals I had set for myself that I would make a difference, at least in one person’s life. Over the course of my stay, I saw such differences, the extremes between the wealthy and the poor, the differences in the foods I was fed throughout my life and the foods I was served in that distant land, the dissimilarity between the cultures of the East and the West; but still I think the biggest difference I noticed was the quietness of Christmas, a holiday which I have always been immersed in while I was growing up in Guyana.Granted,cheap china jerseys nfl, during the months leading up to Christmas, and on Christmas Day itself, I was not in the urban settings of the capitol city Phnom Penh or the tourism capitol of Cambodia Siem Reap; I was in the small and forgotten dusty villages in the province of Battambang doing my best to help teach literacy, a moral development course and English language programme to various groups of Khmer youth in different villages of that province.Some of the children in one of the CORDE tutorial classes in the village of Hei Phnom, in the province of Battambang. There was no slow build up and eventual climax of the holidays, and every day passed almost monotonously, starkly different from the way Christmas is in Guyana. Christmas Eve I spent with a fellow foreign colleague, Canadian Ryan Duly and his wife Echo, who is from China. They had arrived in Cambodia just a few months before me, and were also working with CORDE’s programme in Battambang.We had dinner at a simple restaurant and thought back as to what was going on during Christmas in our home countries: Canada,cheap jerseys china, China and Guyana. As we thought, spoke and ate together, it became apparent to us that to many people in our home countries, the real spirit of Christmas was lost in the fray of the decorations, the lights and the jolly, fat, old men.The next morning I awoke to an explosion, as I later heard that a donkey had wandered into a minefield, which had not yet been cleared of the unexploded ordinances. But that was probably the most memorable thing that happened on that day for me. After the explosion, I had a quick breakfast of bai cheruk (literally pig rice),cheap jerseys cc, which is a combination of boiled rice and grilled pork, and went to work in the village of Hei Phnom.The tutorial class I taught that day was uneventful, and I returned to the school where I was being provided with lodging and went to sleep after playing a quick game of volleyball with the children living near to the school. I was later told that within the larger cities, like Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, where overseas missions and workers congregated under the pretext of development work, Christmas is taken quite seriously, as a part of the viable tourist industry and foreign exchange these foreigners are seemingly rich in.Foreigners living and working in Cambodia command such a high degree of respect by most of the locals, largely due to the assumption that all foreigners have more money than locals. Because of this, many festivals, practices and customs that are native to foreigners (like Christmas) have been adopted by the locals, especially those living in areas where there is a high concentration of foreigners.As true as this may be, in the village of Battambang,nfl jerseys china, Christmas was almost invisible,wholesale jerseys usa, with no wreaths,cheapnfljerseys.cc, no decorations and no real mention of the birth of Christ. But, occasionally there were Christmas carols on the radio, beamed in from radio station in far away Phnom Penh, but these were few and far between.There were no wrapped presents, and there were no decorated Christmas trees. This, I think, made me feel a bit sad because after the genocide and the war that the Khmer people had experienced, I really felt the ideals of Christmas and of Santa Claus, and just of goodwill among men and peace be unto you would have been so accurate and applicable to help give them something to believe in.Venturing into Phnom Penh during the Christmas season, I have been told, the Christmas decorations are considered to be an integral component of celebrations. For most people who celebrate the birth of the Christ child, in Cambodia, it is only cosmetic, and the celebration involved usually encompasses the real spirit of Christmas.After growing up in Guyana, I was accustomed to hearing Christmas songs on the radio from late October, and decorations up from the earliest possible date. So you can imagine that juxtaposed between the two cultures: my Guyanese upbringing and the culture of the Khmer people which I was immersed in.Still, it was an interesting experience, Christmas in Cambodia. It was a Christmas with no presents,cheap jerseys usa, without carols and void of jolly old Saint Nick. It gave me an entirely new take on the holiday of Christmas, and it made me think of the real reason why the world was celebrating the birth of a singular man.