Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 Detachment Koh Kong celebrated the Cambodian New Year with locals in Koh Kong City, April 13.

Khmer New Year (pronounced "Ka-mai"), is an annual three day Cambodian holiday to celebrate the upcoming year.

It coincides with the end of the harvesting season when farmers enjoy the fruits of their labor before the rainy season begins.

Koh Kong City became the center for the holiday celebrations. Streets were lined with food carts and filled with children dancing and tossing buckets of water at anyone who passed by.

"It was nice to see everyone celebrating in town and it was fun to walk the streets trying not to get soaked with water or have powder rubbed in my face," said Builder Constructionman Thomas Dykes.

The detachment was invited to a local family's home to celebrate the Khmer New Year. The celebration included enjoying many locally made dishes, Khmer karaoke and a display of numerous cultural dances around a table loaded with fruit.

"You don't see things like this in the states like throwing water and powder at each other for a celebration. They almost got us coming out of a nearby mini mart!" said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class William Reece. "It was a really unique experience and it's cool that they made us feel part of their celebration. You could tell everyone was overjoyed to be entering the New Year as they closed almost every business and store to celebrate for a few days."

The Seabees also mentioned how amazing the cultural food was and how grateful they were that the locals took the time to teach them some Khmer dances.

"The locals were so inviting and eager to have us participate in their festivities," said Builder 2nd Class Miles Trevor. "We're really thankful for being invited to celebrate the Khmer New Year with them."

NMCB 4 is the forward deployed pacific NMCB ready to support major combat operations and humanitarian assistance/ disaster relief operations and to provide general engineering and civil support to Navy, Marine Corps and joint operational forces.

Homeported out of Port Hueneme, Calif., NMCB 4 has detachment sites deployed throughout the United States and Pacific area of operations, including Cambodia, Diego Garcia, Guam, Japan, Philippines, Republic of Korea and Timor Leste.

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For more news from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4, visit www.navy.mil/.