Holi-madness

I left my house this morning in a stark white t-shirt and came back drenched and covered in caked on red pigment.  Holi, a Nepali national holiday, is to celebrate spring and represents a story of Hindu religion.  As we experienced it today, folks, mostly kids, throw water bombs (plastic bags filled with water, sometimes colored water), shoot water guns, pour buckets of water, and smear color dyes on your face.  Some of this is done nicely with a "Happy Hol!", some quite competitively and some not so nice (especially we've heard depending on the area you are in).  Often the water comes from windows or roof tops stories up and when you least expect it.  And no doubt about it, when those plastic bags of water hit you square in the back they smart.  It was a lot of fun, high energy, and after a few hours a cab ride home sounded fabulous - and though the man that picked us up was a bit concerned about how wet and colorful we were we did our best to keep his cab as clean as it was when we got in.

Sunday roadblock

This morning there were activities at school we were going to attend and Jeremiah went ahead while I got ready.  He sent me a text not long after saying "bring a bunch of 5 rupee notes to pay the road stop string kids".  Some friends warned us that soon this would happen.  I found all the 5 notes we had, shoved them in my pocket and off I went thinking I'd only have to pay a few kids off.  I turned up our shortcut to school and found 10 kids with 4 sets of ropes in succession with big smiles on their faces.  I handed out money and they let me pass.  A little further up on the road there was another rope, and again I paid them.  The last block I had to talk my way out of since I'd run out of small bills.

I googled why they do this and found today is Shivaratri, a Hindu festival of the god Shiva - there is a good description of the festival over at The Longest Way Home.  I read here that:

“It used to be very cold during Shivaratri before and people, who fasted and awoke all night worshipping Shiva, blocked roads asking for firewood to keep themselves warm through the night with bonfire (samidha). With time, kids started blocking roads asking for money,” shared Madan Kumar Rijal, Associate Professor of Culture at Tribhuvan University.

I've only got a few small bills left and have to go back to school later, I'm hoping the kids will have gotten tired of standing outside and given up for the day!

Tihar Festival

Tihar is a 5 day festival of lights.  There are different days of worship, or puja.  I've seen the schedule of the days vary a little depending on what I read and who I talk to, but here it is generally:

• Day 1: Kag puja - crows; food and sweets are left on roofs.  
• Day 2: Kukur puja - dogs; as the messenger of the god of death the dog is worshipped with garlands and tikas.  
• The morning of day 3: Gai Tihar - cows; a sign of prosperity and wealth they are worshipped with garlands and grasses.  
• The evening of day 3: Laxmi (goddess of wealth); she is welcomed into home with oil lamps and pathways leading from mandalas.  
• Day 4: varies depending on a family's beliefs.  
• Day 5: Bhai Tika - Sisters give their brothers tika.

We had Laxmi Puja done at our house a few days ago.

  

Put on your dancing shoes

We have some great folks here showing us the local culture. Here is a dance demonstration for the Dashain and Tihar festivals.

Sel roti

Basically a crispy rice donut.  It's commonly served during the festivals, weddings and other celebrations.  I loved it.  Sweet but not too sweet, crispy outside and soft inside. 

Bamboo swings

Part of the Dashain celebrations includes communities constructing bamboo swings.  These things are huge!

A rare family photo

We're on holiday from school for the Dashain festival, my mom is visiting and we're hitting up the sights around town.  Most of our family photos are taken by Jeremiah with his phone, so I had mom take one while we were at the stupa in swayambhunath.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

In case we had forgotten why we had the day off from school today, google reminded us:

Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival is today, the 15th day of the eighth month following the lunar calendar.  In Taiwan many families celebrate with moon cakes, pomelo fruit and BBQ.

Sample platter for teachers at school.  Some moon cakes are sweet, some "salty" (usually meat-filled).  

We like the sweet ones!

Celebrating the moon

Yesterday we were invited to celebrate Mid-Autum Moon Festival with a local Taiwanese woman. This holiday is based on a lunar calendar, so is on a different day each year. There are a few stories behind the holiday - each with many versions.

One of them, from what I understand, is about Houyi and Chang'e. Houyi was an archer who shot down 9 of the suns that were circling the Earth, leaving only one. He was given two pills which contained the elixer for eternal life. His wife, Chang'e, took her pill before she was supposed to and ended up (in some versions she was banished, others she simply floated up) on the moon.

Many Taiwanese families get together and have bbqs, eat moon cakes, pomelos and many people light fireworks. We sampled many varieties of moon cake (though not the more traditional Taiwanese moon cakes because they had pork in them) and had pomelos and tea.

Picture from here