How to Survive "High Holiday Season"

In another 10 days, it will be Puch'm Ben. This means productivity-wise, everything is downhill till International New Year. I like to call this period "high holiday season" to distinguish it from "low holiday season" in April/May. I realize this makes no sense. Forgive me.

Cambodia is already notorious for their 31 public holidays. I like to classify them in five categories:

• Cultural Holidays. Puch'm Ben, Khmer New Year, and Water Festival.
• Buddhist Holidays. These exist, but no one in the international community knows them.
• Political Holidays. Birthdays of multiple members of the royal family, independence days, etc.
• Rights-Based Holidays. Labor Day, Women's Day, Children's Day, and Human Right's Day.
• Imported Holidays. International New Year and Christmas, the later being extremely unpopular. 

Schools and government ministries take all 31 holidays. Even if it falls on a weekend, a day is still taken off in lieu. The private sector picks a selection. My organization (and many others) takes 17. I also work with two different Cambodian partners who both also take 17 holidays. While we take all the "cultural holidays" and "international holidays," we vary on the political and rights-based ones. On my calendar, in three separate colors, I record which partner takes which day off. This varies from year to year, and organizations often holidays based on the day they fall (Friday trumps Tuesday, etc). Officially, I'm only allowed to take the holidays which my sending organization approves. Unofficially, if a partner is closed, I usually don't have much to do...which means going to my sending organization's office and writing blog posts.

The main holidays in "high holiday season" include the following:

• Constitution Day (24 Sep). Holiday for Partner1.
• Puch'm Ben (three days in Sept or Oct). Holiday for my organization, Partner1, and Partner2.
• Coronation Day (29 Oct). Holiday for my org, and Partner1. 
• King Father's Birthday (31 Oct, aka, Halloween). Holiday for my org and Partner2.
• 1st Independence Day (9 Nov). Holiday for all three.
• Water Festival (three days sometime in Nov). Holiday for all three.
• Human Right's Day (10 Dec). Holiday for my org and Partner1.
• Christmas Day (25 Dec). Holiday for all three.
• International New Year (1 Jan). Holiday for all three.
• 2nd Independence Day (9 Jan). Holiday for all three.

This is the next three months for me. I was recently working on my department's quarterly report for October, November, December and realized that between holidays, training's, my vacation, staff paternity leave, and retreats, we only have three full weeks of work between now and 2013. As I go into my third "high holiday season," I've realized that it's a battle at work to keep things moving during this period. Life is slow. You can only accept it, plan major activities for January  and enjoy the time off. Very few countries have this many holidays so enjoy it while it lasts.