Meri Zindagi

This is Salma's picture. She is my very good friend here and I spend a lot of time with her - plus she does not speak English so I get to practice my Hindi with her. She is also our servant along with her mom, Husseina Auntie and her sister, Shabbanna. Salma is 17, she thinks, and somedays I do the laundry with her and we speak together.
These pictures are from the festival of Pola, which is a celebration of the bulls and their labour by the farmers. For this celebration, the bulls get the day off work and are painted in all different colors. I have gone to a nearby village with Tomke's family, where the celebration is larger. We also performed the pooja to a few bulls. (look at Tomke's Blog!!!)

Now there has been much celebration surrounding the arrival of Ganpati and the welcoming of Ganesha and into the household. Everyone has been so excited about his arrival and these past few days we have been preparing. During these past few days I have spent a lot of time at Tomke's house as her family just last night hosted a huge Pooja for Ganpati and Mahalakshumi. For this function we have worn Saris and there were so many people in attendance! For pictures on this, please visit Tomke's blog!!! Sorry, but it takes so long to upload them here!

OK, so these two pictures are of the first day of Ganpati, when Ganesha was welomed into peoples' homes: all day long people were bringing the idols into their houses and dancing in the streets to the music of drums - and by this I mean that only the men can dance - the women stand on their terraces and watch (both of these fotos I took from my terrace too!) P.S. the picture of these goats on my last post was also taken from my room. They come to graze just outside my house every day!