A New Year

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We saw in the New Year here with beautiful company, food, songs and midnight prayer. Our weather forecast chart for the 1st of Jan said we could expect 'fine, with a chance for spiritual growth!' Second semester of school started officially on the 1st, though quite a few enjoyed a few extra days holiday in their villages and we had better attendance today.

The college girls are keeping us entertained with their enthusiasm and artistic talents. While previously only involved with the lower primary children in the school and middle primary in the hostel; this year I’ve also taken on a project to help train up some of the college girls who will become future teachers. It is a big task though I have another enthusiastic Karma Yogi to do this with and it’s sure to be fun for all of us. At the moment we are giving them a spoken English class in the morning to build confidence and grammar skills and then taking a few at a time into our Kindergarten - Grade 3 classes for some prac work.

As always it is a two way process and we’re surely learning more than we are giving or teaching the girls! Today especially, it was an opportunity for some insight into the complex Indian culture that is still alive and thriving here. Sitaji (from Slovenia who is co-teaching with me) and I were called back to the school late afternoon to judge some competitions the college girls were involved in. We walked past the big cricket game the college boys were engrossed in. As soon as we arrived, we were ushered into one of the locked rooms and given a clipboard and comment sheet and asked to rate the Rangoli artworks. Rangoli is one of the most popular art forms in India. It is a form of sandpainting that uses finely ground white and coloured powders. Our girls do not have formal classes in this artform, it is something they grow up practicing in their home communities.

Thankfully, we had resident (graphic designer) artist Laura who recently arrived from the U.S. with us to help make the judging process a little easier! We agreed that first place went to the peace candle and second place to the blue Om with the beautiful red flowers. The second event to be judged was the Mehndi. The girls had spent one hour preparing this hand art. Mehndi is the application of Henna, as a temporary form of skin decoration. This group was not any easier to select from as there were numerous contestants and it was an incredible range. I’ve attached a picture of our favourite.

“A nation is advanced in proportion as education and intelligence spread among the masses”

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Comments

[Marg]

Beautiful Art
Beautiful art Kath! Thanks for sharing this.