Durga Puja

Durga Puja was so much fun! On Monday, Joy stopped by the flat to see if I wanted to play football (soccer). I said sure and Ellenoor and Trina came along too. A bunch of the girls came out in their brand new dresses (everyone gets new clothes for Durga Puja) to play with us. The teams were me, Joy, Ellenoor and Manisha vs. Piya, Mili, Arati and Trina. It was so hot and humid I thought I would die. It was really fun though!

That night the volunteers met the girls at school so they could take us around Khardah and show us all the pandals. (Pandals are the structures I was talking about, one of which they built right outside of school. They start as just bamboo shells, and then they put fabric or other things on them to make them look like solid buildings. Its an amazing transformation. Inside each pandal is a shrine to Durga Puja and her entourage. People file through to pray and look at the beautiful craftsmanship.) The girls all looked so beautiful all dressed up. Prativa held my hand the entire time we were walking. She just chatted away about all sorts of things. It was really sweet. I let the kids take pictures with my camera. Its a really exciting thing for them.

The next day all the volunteers and I got up early and went into Kolkata for breakfast. We ate at the Blue Sky Cafe', a place that caters to backpackers and tourists. I had an omelete and a pancake and it was delicious (though the pancake was more the consistency of a crepe) We walked down to Park Street and went to the Oxford Bookstore. Almost all the shops were closed because of Durga Puja. Then we walked up to New Market and shopped around for a few hours. It was way less crowded than the last time I was there, because of Durga Puja. I bought a luggage lock and Trina and I chipped in to buy a hot plate (the one at the flat broke). I also bought a new skirt to wear that night when we went back around to look at the pandals with the kids again. I had felt so drab in comparison to the girls who were all dressed up the night before. Also, all of my students and Bobby had kept asking me to get a new dress for DP, so I figred I'd buy into the culture and get something. We shopped around New Market and went into lots of shops that sold handicrafts - carvings, wall hangings, jewelery. I'm beginning to think of Christmas gift ideas. We had lunch at a place called Scoops, and we all got pizza. It was actually pretty good. On the way back to Khardah, the train was so empty. It was really nice! Yay Durga Puja!

That night was technically the boys' night to show us around, but Joy was the only boy who seemed interested in doing it, so (much to Joy's dismay) I invited the girls along again. At first they said they didn't want to come, but they soon changed their minds and Manisha and Mili came with us. That night it was Manisha who wouldn't let go of my hand. We walked alot further to see the pandals that we hadn't gotten to the night before. Once again, it was really fun. When I tried to take a picture of Manisha at one of the pandals, all of the children there (about thirty or so) tried to get in the picture too. As I said, cameras are very exciting objects.

The next day, Trina, Ellenoor and I took a cab into Kolkata to see the pandals there. The driver took us to the most unique ones, and they definitely upstaged all the ones we saw in Khardah. One looked like a Roman Catholic Church, another featured kites and another dolls. They were all really amazing.

After this, things began to slow down. On Thursday, three of the five people in the flat were really sick. By Thursday night, Robyn and I, the immune ones, were sick too. Because of this, today and Thursday have not been the most fun... I have gotten some work done on my app essay though, which is good.

All in all, this week has been really great! I'm beginning to love the kids so much; I can already tell its gonna be really hard to leave them.