Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate

October 14, 2017

Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate

Per usual, India has been treating me so well. Time is flying by, one month managed to feel like one week and all of a sudden I have been here for almost two and a half months. It has been nothing short of exciting and there is so much more to come for the rest of the year. In September and half of October there have been a few major events that have been the most exciting for me.

First of all, Navratri. I'm sure some of you saw the mass amounts of pictures that my mom and I both posted but I figured nobody actually knew what it was about. Navratri is celebrated in different ways depending on what region of India you are in. In Gujarat it is celebrated for 10 nights with a traditional folk dance called Garba. I danced in a big air conditioned dome all 10 nights. (Although I never really felt the effects of the A/C)I typically got to the dome at 10pm and got home around 2am... sometimes earlier, sometimes later. Then, I woke up at 6:30am to go to school, came home at 4:30, took a nap and did it all over again for ten days. It was definitely the most tiring and sweaty week of my life but it was SO much fun and I had the time of my life. It was a huge venue and it was packed. I think there were a couple thousand people there (maybe, I am horrible at estimations). In the dome there are many different groups and they all form their own circles. Garba has many different variations of steps and number of steps and each group for the most part did different steps. I won two prizes over the week. One for "powerful performance" and one from my specific Garba group. There was a live band and different singers who were amazing. I have been to many concerts and have never heard music played so loud. I made the experience that much more fun. However, it always made it hard to fall into my much needed sleep... I would close my eyes and it felt like I was still spinning and dancing and I could still hear the music ringing in my ear. It took some serious focus to fall asleep every night. The story behind Navratri is very cool, trusty Wikipedia explains it much better than I could so feel free to check out this link. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navaratri

The next major thing for me was actually more of an epic failure. I participated in a Model United Nations at my school, where there were many other schools participating as well. I was in the General Assembly and our issue was border disputes between Indo-Pak-China. Keep in mind.. I'm in India and guess what country I was assigned to be the delegate of? drumroll please... Pakistan. Something I learned about myself is I am really terrible at defending something when other people are really attacking it. I had too many awkward silences and stutters in places where I should have been kicking as* and taking names. Other than the actual debate going really horribly, I made a couple new friends which is always nice.

My third and final event of the month (ish) took place just last night! It was "Annual Function" at my school. One of my performances was at the very beginning of the 4 hour show where I played guitar in the school "orchestra". I put that in quotations because when I think of orchestra I think of string instruments and classical music... this was more like band. My second performance was a classical Indian dance that Martha from Germany and I have been learning since we started school. It was with other girls from grade 8-11. The last couple days leading up to the function, we were all at school so late rehearsing and making sure our costumes were perfect. The school put lots of time into making the event look very nice. The transformation of our stage area was incredible, it made me feel like I was performing on a professional stage (which was stressful haha). Annual Function was our last day of school before we go on a 15 day holiday for Diwali vacation. Which is basically like our Christmas/Winter break. Diwali is the Hindu New Year and also called the festival of lights. There are Christmas lights everywhere, it is so colorful and beautiful! There will also be lots and lots of fireworks and crackers from what I hear which will be lots of fun. There are less regulations on these kinds of things in India than in the US so it will be much more exciting. :) For the second half of vacation, I am going to Pondicherry in the south of India with my host family and I am SO excited.

Stay tuned for my next update! I promise it will be less than a month in between blogs this time.

All my love, Namaste.