Festival of Colors

This past weekend, I had the awesome opportunity to go participate in the Festival of Colors. Festival of Colors is a celebration of Spring in India. The tradition is to throw colored powder at each other in the celebration of love and spring. If you love someone, you smear the powder in their face, rather than throwing it. There is a Indian temple in Spanish Fork, Utah where this event happened. Before the festival started, we were able to walk through the temple and hear people singing and see them dancing. It was so cool to see other cultures and their customs. In their temple, they have many paintings and sculptures of their God and their prayers. One prayer that was said many times and what the crowd said before we threw the color was the Hare Krishna Chant. It goes:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
We said this chant over and over many times throughout the festival. We also said Shanti which means peace many times. It was just a celebration of Happiness and love for each other. One thing they emphasized was the love of variety and differences. Even though everyone there wasn't the same religion, race, age or anything, we could all come together to celebrate just that, or differences. It was amazing how many people came and participated. They have so many come that they have two different celebrations so they can accommodate more people. I thought it was interesting that most of the people that were running the event weren't Indian. It just showed that it didn't matter your background, you could still participate. They also had different groups doing Indian Dancing and we listened to a lot of Indian music. I've been doing a lot of research lately about India and they have really cool ceremonies and celebrations for many different things. My roommate's grandpa is from India and I had the opportunity to meet him yesterday. He showed us pictures of him at the Festival of Colors in India. It was cool to think that we were able to celebrate the same thing here in Utah. This was a really fun experience that I hope I can be a part of again. Not just because you get thrown with dyed powder and get to be colorful, but the experience of witnessing another culture and how differences don't matter.

Waiting

Refugees in this picture are in line waiting to receive mail from family members or friends that stayed behind.  The mail was delivered once a week and the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered the mail.  It would be very difficult to wait in crowded, long lines like this picture shows.  They wait in line and they probably all didn't get mail every week.  They probably never knew when mail from their loved ones would come, or if it even would.  Families would get separated because sometimes they didn't have enough money to send their whole family to be sent to camps or places that were safer or often, they would wait for other family members to join.  Often times when they would separate, they would most likely never see each other again.  Writing letters were their only form of communication and they were lucky if the were able to do that much.

In this particular camp, it was common for the refugees to help each other out.  One particular family came to this camp with basically nothing.  They didn't have much food for all 8 members and other refugees in the camp came to help them out (CET).  Without this help, the family would've died.  I think it's so great that even in the worst conditions, people are still willing to help out with what little they had.  It just shows how much people really do care and how much their help is appreciated.  I'm sure helping that family in need when they themselves had next to nothing was hard, but they did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.

Salgado, Sebastiao.  Photograph.  "Migrations: Humanity in Transition [Children Today:Men and Women of the New Century]." Legends Online.  PDN & Kodak Professional, n.d.  Web.  17 March 2010. 

CET. "Krajina Serbs Remember Operation Storm, Ten Years On."  Worldnews.  Euronews.  Web.  17 March 2010 

Left with Practically Nothing

This is a picture of a boy that is in the Natinga School camp which provides a place for displaced people of Sudan, mostly boys ages 8-18.  They are taught just like in normal schools but this school is a little different.  This school doesn't have a roof so when it's raining, school is cancelled.  When it's not raining, they learn to write by using sticks to write on the mud floor because it's hard to find paper and pencils for all the students (Walgren).  Food is also scarce and breakfast is just a half a cup of grain, barely anything to fill anyone.  There also isn't hardly any water which makes it difficult to have enough for drinking and for cleaning all the boys (Walgren).  To make matters worse, they have to grow up with usually no parents or family and this school is basically all they have (Walgren).  Living at this camp and school is the best option that most of these boys have and I'm sure life isn't easy for them.  Having all this happen to them at such a young age would be so hard and something that most people wouldn't want for themselves or their children.

Salgado, Sebastiao.  Photograph.  "Migrations: Humanit in Transition [Children Today: Men & Women of the New Century]."  Legends Online.  PDN & Kodak Professional, n.d.  Web.  10 Mar. 2010.

Walgren, Judy.  "The Lost Boys of Natinga: A School For Sudan's Young Refugees."  All Business A D&B Comapny.  Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 1998.  Web.  10 Mar. 2010.

Left not Knowing

Salgado, Sebastiao.  Photograph.  "Migrations: Humanity in Transistion [The Human Family Around the World].  Legends Online.  PDN & Kodak Professional.  n.d.  Web.  4 Mar. 2010.

  This picture is of some women left in Iraqi Kurdistan villages not knowing where their husbands, fathers, or brothers were safe or even alive.  On July 31, 1983, some of Saddam Hussein's soldiers came into many villages and took away all of the men.  Also, all the population was forced to move villages like Beharke near the city Erbil (Chess).  This all happened for no apparent reason.  I can't imagine having my dad or brothers taken away for no apparent reason and then years later not knowing if they were still living.  All of this happening for no apparent reason would make it even harder for the families that were left behind.  Living in a village with no men would be really weird too.  It would make life much harder without the men to help out.  My dad does so much for our family and I don't want to know what it would be like without him in my family's life.  It wouldn't be a life I would want to live.  Unfortunately, these women had no choice.

Kyranlucien. "Sebastiao Salgado, Photographer of the worldfull of ashes and gray sadness...."Chess Blogs. N.p. 01/23/2010. Web. 4 Mar. 2010