How to Explain Unexpected Rain

It poured last Monday for several hours. It was very nice, cooling down the hot day. Rain empties the streets because you can't drive a moto, tuk tuk or bike when it's raining down sheets.

The unusually heavy and unseasonal rain was partially attributed to the Water Festival stampede deaths. The spirit world is unsettled and disturbed by the large number of unexpected deaths. Cambodian tradition suggests that for six days, the soul of the dead wanders around unaware they are actually dead. They'll try and go home so their family members will place food outside the house to keep them from entering the house. A Buddhist monk will circle the house chanting to create a type of spell which prevents the spirits from entering the house. If they enter their former home, they'll become ghosts and haunt the house. Often, intense and bananas or other food are set up on the sidewalk, even more appeasement and enticement. Sometimes, little model cars and houses are burned along with the incense so that the spirits will have all their needs met in the spirit world and have no desire to return home.

On the seventh day after their death, a spirit will finally realize that they've died. Since they can't go home, and they know their dead, they'll accept it and disappear into the spirit world.

There are three funerals after someone dies. The day after they die, the seventh day after they die (which is when the dead spirit realizes it's dead) and then 100 days afterwards to fully appreciate the passage of time. Sometimes, for cost efficiency, the seventh and 100 day funerals are rolled into one. During a funeral, it's perfectly acceptable to set up a massive tent in the street and play loud music and chanting over a PA system during each three-day funeral. Everyone does it. There's an unspoken rule that you can't complain because eventually do you'll do it too.

And so, rain, anomalies, and any form of disturbance last week was blamed on the Water Festival deaths and disturbance in the spirit worlds. It caused some genuine trepidation and fear; fear that the spirit world was somehow unbalanced which lead to the accident, and fear that the recently dead spirits would cause an even greater disturbance. Sometimes it's hard for me to understand such tradition as a Westerner. But this is what death means here, and the consideration for the happiness of others is touching. Lets hope we're so considerate while they're alive.