Holi, Holi, Holi

This week was Holi, a Hindu festival celebrating the beginning of spring and the radiance of the universe. There are various stories about the origins of the holiday, which you can check out if you want on Wikipedia; I won't write it all out here. Traditionally, though, Holi is the festival of colors, and so everyone dresses in white and throws brightly colored powders at each other. The whole of the Indian population is smudged bright blue, purple, or pink for a week.

I went to the beach on Wednesday with Helen and Jackie (the other two UFS volunteers) and watched brightly colored people playing in the waves. It was partly hilarious, and partly beautiful.



And, ok, these women haven't actually been doused in Holi powder, but they were colorful enough to begin with:



We walked along the beach to Ashtalakshmi Temple, which is dedicated to the eight secondary manifestations of the goddess Lakshmi. Hindus pray to Lakshmi for wealth, in the forms of prosperity, good health, knowledge, strength, progeny, and power. Here's Jackie and me in front of the temple:







Other than going to beaches and temples, my work with Unite For Sight has been going swimmingly. Today we got to practice cataract surgery on a goat's eyeball! We learned the cataract technique, and did the surgery under a microscope, and got a feel for the use of the phacoemulsification machine. It was pretty exciting, but I don't think I'm quite ready to perform cataract surgeries on any human eyes yet; the end result of my surgery was... well, a little messy.





Other than all of that... well, I guess I'm getting mentally prepared for the next leg of the journey-- I leave for South Africa next week! It's hard to believe I've been here for 5 weeks already; the time has flown by.