Since leaving KD Hotel I've been sleeping on the floor of an NGO's office. Except for the 5 days I was invited to spend Deepavali (India's most important Hindu festival - equivalent of christmas but instead of gifts the men typically just give money to family members and saris and money to people less fortunate who you pay for any work (garbage, employees, maids). Many stories of the fame of Indian Deepavali were told to me before the event, how houses were covered in lights, and fireworks all day and night seem to be wistful memories of how it was before safety regulations have been enacted and somehow enforced to limit homemade gunpowder bombs and such.
The firework intensity was at about 50% Guate City on Guatemala's Christmas-New Year. I attempted to explain this to the family, but they were mostly just shocked that there was a country called Guatemala and that it only had 13 million people in the entire country. But, I assume that other places maybe more and Guatemala is probably behind India on regulations.
Deepavali is 8 days total, and very interesting in its roots. Read about the Lakshmi and her story above. Except for a day break in the middle, it has a nice mix of nuclear family, extended family, and return-to-home traditions. The family I stayed with has a very religious mother, Pooja. Pooja means worship in Hindi, and during the night of Deepavali is a very important nuclear family worship rite that has to be done according to family-specific motions handed down "since the beginning of Hindu religion, before people were around" according to my family here. (They adopted me after 5 days and are now in the process of arranging my marriage).
The Deepavali worship must be done to ensure family protection, happiness, and wealth in the following year by inviting Lakshmi Mata (Mother Lakshmi), a goddess, to come into the home. This is done through placing lights at both doorposts of every door in the house and lighting up the entryway to the doors with many candles (see candles on balcony rail in the pics). Also, they
worship their specific family god by preparing the right food for the Ahvan, which is their typical worship ceremony. Ahvan involves setting up a small fire fed constantly with ghee (Is fat free ghee good for you? India thinks so, but it looks greasy to me. Pooja prepares things with extra ghee and then ladles more ghee onto the rotis (tortilla like) before you eat them. I was turning them over to let the grease settle on plate until they asked me why and I stuttered and they explained that it makes you strong?) and first you burn things that have been taken around the house to collect negative energies, bad eyes, and any other harmful things that have gathered from people with negative energy coming into the house. Then there is a process of feeding the fire (god) certain prepared foods and sweets (their family god likes to eat 5 things, most of which I have never seen before. The only ones I recognized were cococut and raisins). There is also the inclusion of family ancestors who are remembered and prayed to for blessing.
And then you eat all the rest of the food that the gods didnt consume (they eat very little). My family was very kind to let me be a part of their worship. Here some post worship pictures. The little girl, Rose, is very frightened by fireworks and sparklers so after a few attempts the family gave up. Rose's parents say she doesn't like toys, and even in stores has no interest, she prefers small cardboard boxes to tear up and empty bottles and spoons to stuff the bits into.
A few days before a very reputable guru-ji (their holymen) had come by to do an unexpected Ahvan because he felt the gods wanted him to give extra blessing to the NGO office. Coincidentally correlated a short time after I had been staying there, but they say no relation. The guru-ji sat on my bed sheet and I was without one for that night because God was thought to be dwelling there till the next daybreak.
I have yet to find a workshop spot in the slums, but I am hopeful it'll be next week. I have been planning the pilot project slowly, as it is a very different approach to donor-ngo-community relationships that the ngo is used to, so it takes awhile to create understanding. I have spent quite a lot of time introducing the details of the pilot community design for clean hands project (website not fully functional yet) to the NGO director and working out budget and activities for the year long pilot. Then at night I draft up what we've talked about, so I've had some late nights but only because during the day everyone spends a lot of time just talking and drinking tea.
This is mostly due to language barriers, and I am to blame for that. Hindi is going slowly and it is not my priority right now as I have quite a bit of planning to do before starting up the pilot if I want it to be effective.
I have developed a good trusting relationship with the NGO director and office manager/get the director tea twice a day guy. People drink a lot of tea, and they are very amused that coffee is the low-cost drink of the masses and tea is eletist. "We are millionares in India!" (in hindi) is a daily line.
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