Yesterday was shopping day, made my first trip at around 9:45am and bought some flowers for Garda. She and Marius had invited me for coffee and cake and an exchange of books. I left some picture books of Utrecht, an English history of Sail and the the History of Molens, that is Dutch for windmills. In return I took some others home.
We always have an amicable exchange about family and events. The flowers were very welcome and Garda told me that Marius buys her flowers as well. Marius could hardly wait to see what was in the photo books and started leafing through them as we talked.
After my visit here, I was off to the Diwali Hindi festival of lights in the Kerby centre. The first event was a formal dance, followed by an audience dance, all with music, singing and clapping. This is a wonderful way to loosen up an audience of strangers. I did make a few moves myself, but my India neighbour said that ‘this was for the women‘.
Some more songs followed, some prayers in Hindi and Punjabi, there was a demonstration turban winding by the Sikhs, followed by the Hindi Diwali ceremony by a priest and finally there was the food, for which everyone had been waiting!
I took many photos of the dancing and the ceremonies. It is interesting to compare last Monday’s Chinese Culture presentation with this event. Both showed the great internal variety of traditions within the these cultures, as well as their accommodation of them, making room for and the honouring of such differences.
Regarding my own diversity project, I discovered the existence of the Calgary Hindi society and did get a business card of a person I did not meet. However, I certainly experienced the personality of the Hindi culture with this Diwali celebration. Now I want to find out about the history and significance of this festival! Does it relate to the fire god Igni, which is one of the oldest gods in human traditions?
Later, I made a second shopping trip and after supper I managed to frame up a tentative outline of my Belief Frame work essay. This took me to past eleven o’clock and to my day closing time. No mandala colouring.
<9:06am.
