One More Festival

Yesterday was another festival. This one is only celebrated by married women, it's especially popular in the Punjabi caste. All of the married women at school were wearing nice saris and many of the had mehendi (henna) on their hands. Wives fasted all day yesterday and in the evening they did pooja and prayed for their husband's health, happiness, longevity, prosperity, and faithfulness. At one of the hotels in town, thousands of women got together and spent two hours praying. When the moon was out and clearly visible, a ceremony was preformed. For the ceremony, you have to face a certain direction even if it means standing in the street. After that, they could have dinner. Some people have really big family gatherings at night.
Shruti and I went to visit her old apartment building for dinner. We saw their old apartment and then had dinner with the couple across the hall. Shruti grew up with them living across the hall and she would go across and visit them as soon as she could walk, they are like her second parents. They were really nice and the wife was so excited to meet me.

Yesterday, on the bus, I talked to a kid on the school bus who asked me what country I was from. When I I told him I was from the U.S. he told me his sister went to college there, at a school in a really small school on the Canadian border called Dartmouth. I told him that was basically where I lived. The other younger kids on the bus were confused because they thought I was from Boston since when I explain where I'm from, I usually say "My state is Vermont, it's sort of near Boston." I wish I had a map of America that I could carry around in my pocket to show people where I'm actually from. I could also show people where other places they ask about are in relation to where I live. Some people assume that places like California are near to me even though I try to explain that I'm all the way on the other coast and that the Canada border it REALLY long, all the way across the top of the country.