Holi is the festival of colours. It's a celebration of the start of spring. It's also a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. And many other things. It's probably the biggest hindu festival after Diwali, and so it seems right that, having celebrated Diwali near the start of my time here, I have now celebrated Holi as my adventures are coming to an end.
We celebrated Holi twice at Sangam; the first time with the children at our CP Fun Day; the second time on the actual day of Holi, when we joined a party run by eCoexist - one of our community partners - who used our campsite to host their eco-friendly celebration. How can a festival be eco-friendly or not? You may ask. Well, I shall tell you. As the festival of colour, the tradition at holi is to throw multi-coloured powders at each other. The street powders are made of non-biodegradables and chemicals that are damaging to both the environment and our eyes and skin. eCoexist makes holi colours our of all natural dyes; and in the process supports groups of women and farmers who make the product.
In preparation for CP Fun Day, Jessica, Emily and I emptied 33 boxes of their powders onto large thali plates, ready for the children to play later on. It looked like this:
This was the fun day for the Tare to celebrate the approaching end of their terms here, and so we had 75 children from their 5 different sites. The morning consisted of the usual mix of activities, with a couple of new additions: games, crafts, parachute, bubbles, facepainting and camel riding! Here are some photos:
After lunch and a change of clothes, we shepherded 75 extremely excited children back onto the camp ground, for some group games before we let them loose with the colour. I can show you a couple of photos of the craziness, because I had the waterproof camera that someone donated to Sangam:
It was crazy and noisy and excellent fun. The children all loved it, and so did staff, tare and participants as well! We only used powder, but this is not really the way holi is played, as we were to find out when we joined eCoexist....
The party on the campsite was amazing. Unfortunately I managed to whack my head on a shelf the day before and so had a headache that prevented me from playing all day, but the bit I was involved with was excellent. There were huge piles of (mainly red and yellow) powder, and an entire water tanker on site. Yes, that's right, the element we'd missed with the kids was water. The water helps the dye to stick to your clothes, but also helps to wash it off your face, so that someone else can throw more colour at you! We took the waterproof camera again, but I don't have those photos on my computer, so you'll have to be content with some of the 'this is what we looked like afterwards' shots I took. There was also a drumming circle set up at the campfire; loads of upturned empty plastic tubs and some sticks created some really amazing sounds. Loads of fun!
Well, that's all for now. I only have 2 weeks left here at Sangam, and time is really flying. My official leaving ceremony is in 2 days, and I'm not at all prepared. Then we launch into the seminar which is looking like it'll be fun, but a lot of hard work. No promises about blogs in the next few days, but I'll try to keep you updated!
TTFN
We celebrated Holi twice at Sangam; the first time with the children at our CP Fun Day; the second time on the actual day of Holi, when we joined a party run by eCoexist - one of our community partners - who used our campsite to host their eco-friendly celebration. How can a festival be eco-friendly or not? You may ask. Well, I shall tell you. As the festival of colour, the tradition at holi is to throw multi-coloured powders at each other. The street powders are made of non-biodegradables and chemicals that are damaging to both the environment and our eyes and skin. eCoexist makes holi colours our of all natural dyes; and in the process supports groups of women and farmers who make the product.
In preparation for CP Fun Day, Jessica, Emily and I emptied 33 boxes of their powders onto large thali plates, ready for the children to play later on. It looked like this:
The party on the campsite was amazing. Unfortunately I managed to whack my head on a shelf the day before and so had a headache that prevented me from playing all day, but the bit I was involved with was excellent. There were huge piles of (mainly red and yellow) powder, and an entire water tanker on site. Yes, that's right, the element we'd missed with the kids was water. The water helps the dye to stick to your clothes, but also helps to wash it off your face, so that someone else can throw more colour at you! We took the waterproof camera again, but I don't have those photos on my computer, so you'll have to be content with some of the 'this is what we looked like afterwards' shots I took. There was also a drumming circle set up at the campfire; loads of upturned empty plastic tubs and some sticks created some really amazing sounds. Loads of fun!
TTFN
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