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| Snigdha at We Are One Holi Colour Festival |
This weekend was jam packed and I could not have been
happier. It is funny to think how the
amount of things I do here in just one weekend is probably equivalent to 6
months back home. As the time I have in
Cape Town draws to a close I find myself suddenly realizing all the things I
want to do. This weekend I went to the
We Are One Holi Colour Festival. This
festival was amazing and I have never celebrated Holi in India but I imagine it
is actually pretty similar. Except that
in India the powder throwing isn’t restricted into a designated ‘powder
throwing zone’. People flock to the
streets and throw colour everywhere. It
is meant to be a religious holiday that commemorates a new season of spring,
love, and good. There are different
stories as to why Holi is celebrated because the supreme God Vishnu defeated the
evil Hiranyaksha and so people celebrate good defeating evil. However, Hinduism is a very dynamic religion
and it does not stop there. Holi is also
celebrated in honor of the love that Radha and Krishna share (two more Gods in
the Hindu religion). The main reason why
Holi is celebrated is to usher in the new season after Winter in terms of a
prosperous new summer and spring seasons and it usually is celebrated around a
full moon. Since Hinduism is such a
popular religion, and since Holi is so much fun, it has spread outside India to
places such as UConn and South Africa.
However, I find that many people do not know where Holi comes from and I
find it a little superficial to celebrate a holiday without knowing the meaning
of it even though I know I am guilty of it as well—the Easter bunny confused me
for a long time. Anyways the We Are One
festival here was so much fun as we threw different colored powder at each
other and met different people. Near the
end of the festival I met someone who had stated that he was a proud racist and
I did not know how to respond. After
questioning him about his educational background and his current employment
(which was unemployment) I soon realized that this individual would never get
the power to influence anyone with his disgusting mind. What really upset me was that we were at a
festival celebrating different cultures coming together (I mean it was called
We Are One festival) but here was this individual who just came to the festival
with such an ignorant mind. It disgusted me. But the festival went really well
up until the last hour!
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| Snigdha & Morgan |
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| Snigdha, Katrina, Melanie, Morgan, Lauren learning to surf |
Then on Saturday we went surfing and it was easily my
favorite thing I have done so far. It
was quite frustrating for the first 45 minutes as I kept wiping out and could
barely stand on the board but when I finally got it and was able to stand tall
and proud with the wave behind me, I felt like I was on top of the world. It was as if the world had gone silent for a
second and it was just me and the water.
I don’t know why I hadn’t gone surfing before this and it terrifies me
to think about the fact that I could have left without having gone surfing! There is no way I would be able to do this
back home because I don’t really live close to the beach and if I go to the
beach there is no way surfing would have been on my agenda. Being here in South Africa has given me so
many life experiences that I never would have even dreamed of. I thought when I got to Cape Town it would
just be me in a city gaining new experiences but I didn’t think that I would
change as a person in any way. I find
myself growing up faster here, and I don’t know if that’s because of working at
the refugee centre or just gaining more experiences. I’m not going to be the same person I was
boarding South African Airways flight 204 in January but I could not be happier
to have lost myself in the beauty that is Cape Town.
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