Weddings & Setrawa

Weddings galore!

During our time at Sambali we have been invited to be a part of two weddings. The first was in our small village, Setrawa, and the second was in the city, Jodhpur. Both were big celebrations and a lot of fun. Pooja's wedding had a week of celebrations that happened in her home. Every evening many women from the village would gather and sing marriage songs after dinner. After a while the younger girls would slowly drown out the singing by blasting Hindi tunes. Then the dancing would begin. Either solo or in small groups the girls danced for the audience. Before each song the girls would debate which song to play next. The beginning of several songs were played until they settled on one. The night before the wedding a group of mothers and relatives cooked dinner for everyone. Pooja and ten of her friends all shared a common dish and feed each other. Although later during the dancing despite the excitement surrounding her marriage, Pooja needed her friends to comfort her. The idea of being 18 and leaving all your friends, family, moving to a new village and marrying a complete stranger must be overwhelming and at least a little scary. However on her wedding day she looked absolutely stunning. It took 3 hours to have her make-up done and put on her jewelry and beautiful red wedding sari. It is strange but the wedding night Pooja spent all evening getting ready while everyone else enjoyed the wedding dinner, the arrival of the groom and a variety of different celebrations. The dinner was wonderful but chaotic. We were herded into a relative's home, told to sit in on room and then seconds later moved somewhere else. Tonight men were serving and cooking. Delicious food was piled up on our plate and we ate amongst many other women in their beautiful fancy saris. Finally at 11:00 Pooja was ready and came out to meet her husband. They exchanged flower necklaces and then many religious rituals begun. I snuck off to bed around 1:00, but apparently the ceremonies continued for many hours. 

The wedding in Jodhpur was for Govind's brother. Govind is the founder of Sambali so he invited all the volunteers to the wedding. It was neat to see a wedding from the groom's side of the celebrations. Usha let Amelia, Kerry (another volunteer) and I borrow some of her fancy clothes and jewelry. It took us at least an hour to get ready and one of Govind's relatives to properly pin the clothes and choose the appropriate jewelry and Bindi dots. Everyone was driven to the wedding which was held in a beautiful open tent but divided in two. One side for the women and one for the men. Each side had a long buffet with many vegetable dishes and sweets served in gold pots. Each side also had a band playing classical Indian music. However the men's side also had tables, chairs and an open bar. We enjoyed dinner with the women in the sea of colorful saris. After dinner we wandered over to the men's side (it wasn't a strict gender divide) to visit Mool Singh, the principal/teacher of our school, and Moti, my host brother. Around 11:00 we headed back to the guesthouse/Govind's house and the party was kicked up a notch. The dj blasted Hindi music and everyone danced together bollywood style. It was a lot of fun and somehow I fell asleep despite the blaring music around 3:30. The next night began with a parade down the street. The groom, Shakti, rode a horse behind a marching band. About 10 people each carried a large light. The lights were connected to each other and then to a car with a generator. We paraded down the street and then when we got to the end we were piled into cars, the lights and their porters into a vehicle and someone else climbed up on the horse. We drove about 3 minutes, got out of the cars, the string of lights and marching band reassembled and the horse galloped over for Shakti to re-mount. The parade continued down this street. We arrived at the wedding location, an even bigger open tent, with a fountain, a small temple, and a stage inside. Now the wedding rituals begun. Shakti met his wife for the first time, although because of a previous exchange of emails it was considered a love marriage. The cermonies were very similar to the other wedding. Although this time we befriended two 11 year olds who attended English immersion school and had amazing English so they explained what all the rituals meant. They told us that they spoke English all the time at school because if they don't they have to pay a fine. It reminded me of all my French. Immersion teachers constantly trying to make us speak French to each other.

First Aid, Indian style

Every Saturday at Sambali Amelia and I lead a fun educational workshop. This week's topic was first aid. From all our lifeguarding we both enjoy teaching first aid, although we had to modify a few things to make it appropriate to Setrawa. First topics like hypothermia we quickly eliminated and instead focused on heat exhaustion, heat stroke, malaria and bleeding. For heat exhaustion in Canada we say give them Gatorade for the fluid/electrolyte combo but since Gatorade doesn't exist here we switched it to water and a small salty snack. We brought bandaids from Jodhpur but many girls had never seen one before so we also taught wrapping wounds in cotton. We tried to stress throughly washing cuts because we've seen many of the girls with infected cuts. My favorite difference is that all the girls have an ideal mouth to mouth barrier with them all the time. Dupattas are long scarves worn so that they cover your chest and the ends hang down your back. It is inappropriate not to wear them.in public when you wear a salzaar suit. They are often a very thin material that is perfect for blowing air through but also acts as a barrier. The girls really enjoyed the workshop, especially when I dumped a whole bucket of water on Amelia during our skit for treatment of heat stroke. She also appreciated this because it is hot mid day. The spring in Setrawa is as hot as our hottest summer day...I can't imagine what their summer is like!


Many hands make colorful work!
Sundays are normally a day off Sambali but today we decided to work on painting the school. Recently the school had moved to a new location so previous volunteers had initiated painting the school to brighten it up. Mool Singh had asked us a few times if we could continue the painting project. I think he was getting worried we wouldn't because we were busy doing other things. On the way to school we saw some Sambhali girls, we invited them to come paint. We started painting on our own but soon word spread on the street and we suddenly had 10-15 keen painters. The off white walls with cracking paint became red, yellow, blue and green. Designs, school rhymes and even a peacock filled the previously empty spaces. It was a lot of fun and ended in the challenge of removing all the oil based paint from our hands and arms. The best method ended up being rubbing our hands in the sand. We left the school much more colorful and our hands exfoliated!