Diwali/ Deepavali

On Wednesday, October 26th, we celebrated Diwali.  Diwali is an Indian holiday meaning "festival of lights" that is celebrated for various reasons but some people celebrate it as the start of their lunar new year.  On the nights leading up to Diwali we shot off fireworks.  On Wednesday, all of the girls dressed up in Indian sarees that we bought here.

 At Suresh's house

We went to our professor, Suresh's, mom's house and celebrated with his family.  They cooked us a big traditional lunch.  We ate on the floor off of a banana leaf.  The guys shot off a ton of fireworks.  The fireworks here are all about the noise.  While there are some pretty ones, most are just extremely loud explosions.  I've never even liked balloons because of the anticipation of them popping so I didn't really appreciate these fireworks at all but it was fun to celebrate.  Suresh's family was so nice to us.  They kept offering more and more courses of food.  They even gave us little gifts when we left.

 Setting off fireworks at MCC

In the evening we went back to MCC and the students studying abroad here from Davidson came from Chennai to celebrate with us.  There are only eight of them but they were really nice.  We ate another big meal off of a banana leaf and then set off a ton more fireworks.  The day was really fun but I am relieved that the fireworks are over.