Sorry these blog posts have been few and far between
recently, my to do lists are a page long every day. Life here is busy busy, but
the kids are in final exams right now and then we have a two week break before
starting the new school year, so things should be winding down soon. Even with
the to do lists, lack of down time, early mornings, and late nights, I am so
happy and am constantly reminded how lucky I am to be here…
Last week, we celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of spring,
love, and best of all, colors! I was actually introduced to this holiday a few
years ago at UNC. On the first day of spring, hundreds of students gather on
the quad in white t-shirts and count down 3, 2, 1 and proceed to throw colored
powder and water all over each other. It was definitely a highlight of my
junior and senior years, but celebrating Holi in a Hindi country this year was
even cooler.
Holi is a two-day festival and we like to go all out on the
2nd day here at Kopila Valley, so Sunday we kinda took it easy.
Caroline, her sister, and I put on our white t-shirts and strolled into town
with a couple of older kids to get a glimpse of what this festival is all
about. It was a little eerie – all the shops were closed for the holiday and
the only people roaming the streets were what we called “Holi gangs” - groups
of teenage boys, clutching bags of tika (color) and water guns, ready to cover
the next gang they encountered. The interactions between gangs were really
funny. We saw them approaching, they saw us approaching; we would meet in the
middle of the road, give some sort of head nod and just begin dousing one
another in color and yelling HAPPY HOLI! A few minutes into our adventures and just
a few hundred feet from the house, we were already covered head to toe in red,
yellow, purple, pink and blue tika!
Sunday was a good introduction to the festivities, but
Monday was when things got real. Early in the morning, all of us – yes all 70+
kids, volunteers, aunties, uncles, cousins twice removed, friends claiming to
somehow be related to someone – piled into the Kopila Valley School bus and
drove 30 minutes to Ranigar, a little town west of Surkhet. The road was so
steep and rocky, the bus stopped and we had to hike about 15 minutes down to
the river carrying everything – water bottles, 100 packs of color, 4 year olds,
pots, pans, plates, and enough food for the aunties to cook and feed our entire
crew. The river in Ranigar was beautiful and perfect – crisp blue, water,
mounds and mounds of white sand, tall mountains in the backdrop. And the best part of all? I was surrounded by 70 people that I know and love and consider my family here in Nepal. We ripped open the bags of tika and everyone went crazy throwing and smearing and chucking the tika every which way. People were ruthless and took no prisoners! Within minutes, the river was dyed red and orange and our pristine outfits were rainbow colored. We spent the afternoon swimming in the river, basking in the sun, and not caring that it would take hours to scrub the color off our skins; it was a wonderful day. The aunties and uncles prepared a delicious lunch of spicy peas and potatoes, French fries, fried vegetables, and deep-fried roti. It was so delicious and uber healthy and you wouldn’t have believed they transported all the food, chopped all the veggies, and cooked everything over an open fire right on the beach!
The sun, swimming, and hours of madness were so fun but we were pooped by the end of the day. Most of the kids fell asleep on the bus ride home and put themselves to sleep around 8pm that night and I went to sleep not too much later. A week later, I still have some green dye in my dreads and some purple tika in my ear that seems like it will be there forever. I heard it’s good luck to keep your dye as long as possible so I don’t mind – it’s just another reminder of how wonderful this entire experience is!
-shannon
fellows
ranigard
family!
aunties cooking!
copyright Sherry Sutton Photography
