Hello again! I know this blog is a little belated, but I just thought I would quickly describe the Easter celebrations that I took part in this year. Things started Friday night when we visited our neighbors house to dye eggs. It was a nice relaxing night for us all, and I introduced everyone to my family's tradition of painting the eggs with melted wax. I think they turned out great. All this was in preparation for Saturday night, when we invited some kids from the slum over to launch fireworks, share some snacks, and talk about Easter. It was sometimes slightly awkward, since they didn't speak any english, but we all really enjoyed the fireworks. Indian fireworks are quite similar to what we get in the US (at least in Indiana...) except a little larger and less predictable. Nothing was dangerous (don't worry Mom...) but we did accidentally shoot a rocket into the neighboring school's grounds where it exploded. The chokedar (gatekeeper) came out and yelled at us.
On Sunday, we woke up bright and early to attend an Easter service down in the town proper. It was open to all in Mussorie, and it was a great time to greet friends that we normally don't see on Sundays. In the afternoon, each crch split off to hold a picnic for all of its members; my church had ours on a hilltop overlooking the surrounding area. Of course, they recruited us interns to haul all the food up the hillside (which was NOT easy), but I'm glad that I was able to serve in some respect. The whole afternoon was spent playing games, eating great food, singing, dancing in traditional Garwhalie (yes, they forced us interns to all get up and dance even though we had no idea what we were doing), and hanging out with friends. We all really enjoyed the time, but it was very tiring, especially having to tote all the food and gear around. Plus, we went off with some of the guys we met afterwards to play cricket for two hours. This was a lot of fun, too. If any of you know about my whiffle ball games, it was totally like that. We played in our friend's drive way, and had rules such as over the fence (and down the side of a mountain) is an out, hitting any windows, flower pots, or the upper roof is an out, the lower roof is four runs, and the side of the house is six. Luckily, we didn't lose any balls down the hill. It was a great Easter, but I went to bed at like 9:30 because I was sooo tired.
Sounds like a nice easter. I'm amused about going to bed at 9.30, because here veryone goes to bed at like 8pm, so 9.30pm would be really late for us! I'm amused by the cricket playing, as Indians are world renowed for their ability at it. Talk about a baptism of fire! In Australia we play in on the beach, or in a backyrad on Christmas day, after lunch. For some people the biggest part of Christmas is a match on boxing day.
ReplyDeleteI'm really sorry to tell you this, but The writer of Sense and Sensibility spelt her last name "Austen". I wrote on that back in my last literature exam so I wrote the namea bit. But I'm impressed you read it.