Long time no blog pt 2

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Happy Tihar!!

ok its a bit belated but better late than never. Tihar is the second biggest festival in Nepal after dasian, but I like Tihar loads better. Tihar has 4 main days of celbration. Day 1 thursday is Kuhkur tihar, day of the dog. On day 1 all the gos get tika'd and a garlong round their necks, special food and generally made a fuss of. I dont think i have aq pic of Jungli, our dog at HE and the prettiest dog in Nepal, she is also the laziest spending every daylight hour fast asleep then barking all night long.

Day 2 firday was gai Tihar, day of the cow, smae thing happens again, you tika and garlond a cow, the most sacred of Hindu animals waft a bit on incence, everything uses incence in this country!! and give it some nic food, fruit etc. we dont have a cow at the home so instead we got everything rady on a plate and wandered about looking for a cow to bless, i found it hilarious when we found a cow, the poor thing must have been tika'd 20 times already.

Day 3 is day of slf worship, you do a bit of praying and that sort of thing. Day 4 tika sunday is the big day. In the morning you dont eat anything and then at dinner time everyone gathers round and unlike at dasian when the elders tika and bless you, at tihar brothers and sisters bless ach other and give each other presents. leading up to tihar I had to choose a sister and it was quite a big deal who i was gonna choose cos now they are my sister for life, not to mention they get a present oput of it. I chose Laxmi to be my sister. Laxmi is about 10 or 11 and she and her sister were former street kids, shes a really sweet girls always wanting to tach me games or sit and tell me jokes or stories, her English is also very good and her bst friend innthe home Ranjana always gets her to expalin stuff to me. ranjana writes and understands englisdh very well but isnt great at speaking so sometimes if I ask her something she answers in nepali to Laxmi who then translates.

Anyway for tihar I got laxmia a watr pashmina that matches her kutar sahri, nepali dress, and some tikas, like jelled dots for the forhead, and she got me a 5 rupees birthday card with birthday crossed and tihar written. Inside she wrote 'to tail (instead of dale) happy tihar now you are my big brother from laxmi.' now she rarely calls me dale or tail but 'die' which is nepali for big brother. after everyone got tika'd and gave gifts you sink your teetjh into fruits and sweet things. Itr was a nice day.

Over the 4 days of Tihar all the kids play boiloh, which is traditional dancing, like at home folk go carol singing for money the kids go round and dance for money. Over the 4 days we raised 35,000 rupees which was a hell of a lot!! that money gos towards the medical fund and also for the kids trip/ holiday this year down to Lumbini, birhtplace bof the buddha. The kids dancing was amazing, I dont have many pictures of it but I recorded it all woith the homes video cam and im trying to get a copy of it.

I had a really good time wiht the kids at tihar and I'm glad i cancelled my trek which had ben schedueled in for the same time to go along with the kids. Plus I got a beutiful new small sister out oif it.

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Photos

gai tihar
Tika'ing the cow, it just wouldnt keep still and everyone was trying to get blessed by it.

The girls
Some of the guirls dancing in full Nepali dress

Mero Bahini
Laxmi done up in all her dancing gear with Bijays littls baby.

The Tika ceromany
One of the kiids gtting bleesed.