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My last month at Sangam...
It's been a while since I last updated you all on my life, so here goes, this is what happened in my last incredible month at Sangam. A month full of laughter, tears, excitement and goodbyes.
Work at DG continued to be excited and wonderful. Every day I left work with a feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction. But more about DG later. This thing I want to talk about today is Holi. It took place on the 8th March (a Thursday) and it was the best water fight every!!!
Holi is the festival of colour and it celebrates friendships with colour and water! Traditionally the night before Holi campfires are built to symbolise burning any hard feelings towards another person. The next day coloured powder and water is thrown to show the good friendships for the next year.
So at Sangam Eco Exsit- another NGO in Pune that does work for the environment threw a huge party. People from all over the city came-friends of Sangam and other locals as well. There was a Dj, flowers and flags in the trees, food, drumming workshops, dancing and lots of water! It was so exciting at the start of the day we all dressed in old clothes and armed ourselves with buckets, bowls, water bottles, water guns and some people even had 'ghostbuster' type water pistol backpacks. Armed and ready we made our way down to the campground. For once it was Sangam with the super loud music instead of the communities around us! There was no real structure to the day- you armed yourself with coloured powder and water and chucked it at people!
Rubbing colour in peoples' hair, face and clothes, dunked some more unlucky girls head first into water barrels and got so wet our clothes stared to fall down!! I have never experienced anything like this before. It is a festival for young and old alike and there were no rules on whom you could soak! Half way through the morning we had a brief pause for barfi, samosas and cold chai and then a drumming session run by this junk music band. It was so much fun- the atmosphere was incredible!! Everyone got really into it and I found there was something very satisfiying about hitting a upturned paint pot as hard as you can with a stick! We finished and it was then time for a super yummy lunch. After sitting in the sunshine and realising that Holi had brought the clearest blue skies I've seen- No smog at all, it's amazing what difference a public holiday makes!! Iit was back to the party! The music was cranked up and we danced and danced, dripping wet and an interesting shade of greeny, redy, yellow we had dance lessons from the local Indians that we shared the day with.
As the party began to wind down mid afternoon, Sangam staff hit the street! There was colour everywhere and hardly any traffic!! Any people that did ride past on bikes or rickshaws were covered in paint so strong it would stain their faces for days to come! If only I was joking!!!! I can confirm this statement is very much true as my hair was greeny yellow for days afterwards!!!! :D The difference between the Eco Exsit colour we used and the stuff the locals use it that ours was natural! Not so good if you suffer from allergies as poor Adri and Bron found out (don't worry their fine now!)but they do usually wash out. Anyway so we walked through the neighbour hood armed with, well nothing actually! Everyone was in high spirts and we walked straight into a huge water fight and got bombarded with colour, water and the odd egg. We laughed, screamed and danced with the kids and adults alike as we celebrated one of India's biggest festivals.
There was a real community feel about the day. I remember walking past one family who we played with for a while and the Dad was just as excited as his kids, he was so grateful we spent some of our day with them and as for the kids well you honestly couldn't tell what colour their skin was supposed to be! They looked like smurfs who had run through a paint factory backwards!! Very cute!! :D
Back at Sangam after being told to shower!!Some came back more coloured than others- Elly looked like Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!!! Unfortuently many of us still were stained with colour after we had washed! Not only was today Holi, it was also International Women's Day. So that evening we had a workshop and then a ceromany along the theme. It was really interesting and great to celebrate at Sangam because WAGGGS in one of main charietys that Internatinal women's day supports.
My second last full week at work was just as exciting and as busy as Holi itself had been. The teachers were just as excited as the children, not only for Holi but also for the Community Program fun day.
Monday was a half day as we were taking the participants on an Essence of India Event from Sangam to work with us. Showing them around gave me a great sense of pride and ownership of what I do and it was great to show them what DG is and just how special the place is. We gave them a tour of Ramtikadi (the slum I work in) and then half of them joined Adri and I in the crèche whilst the others went upstairs to watch the tailoring class. We sang songs and played games and it was a really fun morning, I'm hoping the ladies enjoyed it as much as we did...I think they did!! :D The afternoon was spent at Sangam preparing for the kids camp the following day, however since we finished early a trip to Phoniex Mall and AIR CON!! Was in order!!
Tuesday... KIDS CAMP!!!!! Camels, colour, games, songs, crafts, paints and fun!! 75 children from all 5 Tare sites camp all arrived at Sangam on buses full of excitement and ready for a day of fun. One Tare from each site went to pick up the kids and Adri was telling me about the journey... "I arrived outside Deep Griha and all the kids eyes lit up and they had huge grins on their faces when they saw me and the bus arrive. I got off the bus and the children were all lined up and had been since 7am in the morning, just to make sure the bus didn't leave without them! It brought tears to my eyes" Adri hadn't turned up in the bus until 9am! That was just the kids at our site, you can imagine the exitment as everyone arrived! We spent the morning doing face painting, games, songs, musical instruments, crafts and the highlight for children and adults alike- the camel rides!! Sangam had been given a donation to spend on the kids camp so we decided to hire 2 camels for the morning. Everyone had a fabulous time and the camels were very popular, each kid got their picture taken and a copy to take home. By the time lunchtime arrived the kids were tired and hungry, it was good to have a well deserved break for half an hour! After lunch it was back down to the camp ground for songs, group games and balloons. At 3pm it was time to celebrate Holi!!! Music blasted out of the speakers as 75 children, 30 adults and 11 Tare ran around the field splashing each other with couloured powder, the sky was blue and the atmosphere was incredible. Once the colour ran out, the field turned into a huge dance floor and everyone danced like crazy people until it was time for the children to go home.
Peace returned once again to sangam and it was time to clear up and we then had a session to disscuss how the day had gone, it was interesting to hear what the event participants thought of the day and it was great for us to talk and realise how much progress we had made since those first kids camps 3 months ago. One thing's for sure, we all slept well that night!!
Wednesday was full of games and crafts. In the crèche we made an aquarium on one of the walls. All the kids coloured in fish and stuck tissue paper on them and Adri and I stuck them up on a divider wall with glass section across the top so it looked really affective. We added to it throughout the week with jellyfish, bubbles, starfish and seaweed, all the kids and teachers were really happy with it and so was I. I the afternoon I spent my time upstairs with the tailoring class and we made paper beads, bracelets and they even made a beautiful card for me as a thank you for spending time with them, I'll really miss the girls as we are similar in age and get on really well.
Friday, the day after Holi, the kids arrived at work today many still stained with powder from the day before! Lots of games and crafts today- busy as ever although for Adri and I it was kind of sad because we knew we only had one full week and 2 days left at site. Sangetta, one of the crèche teachers was super excited for Holi and she decided at the end of the day it was time to bring out the colour. She absolutely covered everyone, us included in bright pink paint! It was so so funny, but one of the teachers decided that she would get her own back. So when Sangetta wasn't watching she got a whole bag of blue powder and tipped it over her head!!! It was so funny we were all crying with laughter and the kids who hadn't yet been picked up didn't quite know what to make of the whole situation. Sangetta looked like a smurf!!!! Honestly she was so so blue, the photo of her is one of my favourite that I have!! After chai we headed home, walking through the slum was so funny, people usually watch us as we go by but today they were especially suprised because we were dressed in purple with faces to match. Unfortuently this would be the colour of my face for several days because it really didn't wash off no matter how hard I tired!! :D
On a more solemn note, once we returned home it was time for the first of many tearful goodbyes. Priyanka, who has been working at Sangam since she was a guide was flying the nest and moving to Bangalore to begin a new career in a new software company. Everyone was so pleased for her but saying goodbye was so sad and it made us realise that when it was our time to leave it would be so difficult!
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