Diwali Celebrations at School

Hi Everyone,

Well, every year, the parents at Nikhil's school club together and sponsor and organise a Diwali Event which includes families feasting, dancing and fireworks!

The main part is the dancing - we had a live band playing, and the best part was that we had Germans, French, Japanese, Finnish, Dutch, Korean, Indian American - in fact 26 different nationalities are represented at the school and I am pretty sure most of them were on the floor doing garba and then dandiya raas!!! Awesome!

Nikhil and Rhea were dressed in Indian clothes just like Biren and I and both kids were really getting into the swing of things! In the photo above, Nikhil is with a Korean, an american and an Indian friend, and they have all just learnt how to do the indian dances! they were twirling and whirling around the school gymnasium with such enthusiasm - it was fantastic! Rhea was looking so cute with her belly sticking out and she kept spinning around and around and then loving falling on the floor in dizzy abandon!! Biren was thoroughly jet-lagged having just returned from the UK thatmorning and was trying so hard to keep his eyes open! A real angel for even coming there! I had helped organise the event along with a committee of mums, so was busy trying to make sure things went smoothly and everyone enjoyed themselves and keep an eye on my kids at the same time!!!

I hope Diwali went well for each and every one of you and maybe next year we will all be together.

Sejal
5th Nov 2006

Well, it has been some time sice I posted anything, partly because we have been running around like headless chickens, and partly because we have been soooo busy with activities, both after school and at weekends, that I have no time to sit and think, let alone sit and write!

But here is an attempt at catching up with what we have been up to!

We have had several events at school - both Nikhil's and Rheas's. We had a Movie Night for the kids at Nikh's school which Ian's mum, Lisa and I organised. We had over 50 kids and some parents come. we showed a film, had some popcorn and lemonade and the kids sat and watched the film - for the most part!

At Rhea's school we had a visit from the farm animals and I will try and post a pic or two from that if I can - no promises - I am far too new at this ... can you tell! Rhea went ballistic - she loves animals and absolutely loved seeing the dogs, goats, cows, chickens, bunnies and riding on the horse. I was a mental and physical wreck by then end with checking nothing went in her mouth and she didn't get bitten, kicked or trampled!! No gym visits for me for a month!!

Then we had these huge diwali celebrations at AISC which were completely organised by parents of the school. Over 600 people attended and danced garbas, dandiya raas and ate a delicious north Indian meal while watching fireworks across the football pitch.

We had organised the most amazing dessert called roller ice-cream - the guys pour the ice cream and fruit mixture over an enormous roller made of ice and using their hands (gloved!!), they keep spreading the mixture into a thin layer until it freezes and then scrape it off the bottom of the roller (while it is still turning) into a bowl. Incredible! Absolutely delicious and so wierd to watch the liquid freeze in front of you! We are absolutely going to have that in school or at home again! I had two bowls. Would have had more, but a long queue was waiting most of the evening - I skipped the main meal for that!

Rhea and Nikhil joined int he dancing is a most enthusiastic manner. Nikhil was very graceful, getting into the beat and dancing both the garbas and the dandiyas with his friends without hesitation - fantastic!

Rhea was just an uninhibited whirlwind of energy - spinning uncontrollably around and around in her emerald green chania choli with her pale little tummy whizzing past until the dizziness got too much and she flopped onto the floor to recover for a moment. Then up and at it again!!!!

The photo at the top is of Nikhil with his friend Marisa - we went to her house to do some halloween baking - we made cookies in halloween shapes, decorated cupcakes like eyeballs and decorated a brownie in the shape of a ghost with lots of icing. The kids loved it. Rhea managed to sneak a whole cupcake without me seeing her - Marisa caught it on camera! I have never seen a child eat so fast!!!

Anyway, enough news for now, will write more soon.

Happy Diwali - wherever in the World you are. We are thinking of you.

Sejal

21st October 2006