Happy Diwali!

Diwali is a Hindu festival and it appears to be something like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July combined. We went to the Iowa Cultural Center and Temple, and the building is rather striking. It is all white, with many statues and elaborate carvings on it. Inside we had to take our shoes off to enter the sanctuary area. In this area, there were several deities. Some were white colored, like large porcelain dolls, and some were black colored. There were alcoves, some with one deity, some with multiple. Each had faucets, and a drain, for some reason. Each alcove had a place where only the priest could go, and each also had a kind of offering jar.

The ceremonies we were a part of were called poonja, or blessing. There was a HUUUGE altar in the front-middle part of the room, covered with many many bowls of food and drinks and all kinds of offerings. The priest would sing and the people would sing and clap, all while seated cross-legged on the floor. It was interesting- they'd be chanting and clapping, kind of in an excited, festival way, and then they'd suddenly go very serious. There was a guy who would walk around with a small mustard oil lamp, waving it in front of each alcove, while constantly ringing a bell. The priest (who was half robed) had a plate of these lamps and waved them around too. He also threw some flowers onto the altar. It was confusing because nothing was in English. I looked at the Hindi people around the altar who were singing and clapping. They had such pretty fabrics and jewelry on.

After the ceremonies we went outside (we put our shoes back on) for supper. They had many dishes, but the only one I really liked was the flat fry-bread like food. There was this rice that was an odd color, and I found out why when I took a bite- the spices were very strong. There were no meats. Some of the food had unusual flavors but I can't really describe them. One thing had saffron, possibly. I'm not really sure.

After eating we went inside to look around the sanctuary room more closely. It was pretty interesting. After all that, we went back to our van, drove out of the parking lot, and parked by the side of the road for the fireworks show. The fireworks were very nicely done. They shot very high and they even had smiley face fireworks! Cool.

We returned to Simpson and now I'm writing this post. I have a pancake breakfast in the morning to help with, so I'd better go to bed soon. Goodnight.