Tirukarttika

It seems like there's a festival every other day here, perhaps that's why they go to school six days a week, so that they can have more days off.

I'm not exactly sure what this holiday represents but it's definitely one of the more beautiful ones.  Apparently it's the beginning of a month on another calendar.  People light lamps for three days, all over their houses.





I wasn't sure what to expect on Sunday, the first night, the girls had spent the day cleaning small clay bowls (oil lamps) and the candle sticks, as well as the rest of the building (the cow manure from Jean's birthday was finally washed away).  I had promised to visit the garden and set off some fire crackers with the boys.  I rushed back to the illam where the girls were filling the little lanterns with oil and then taking them all over the building.  We went up to the roof where we could look out over the village and see lanterns decorating each house.  It was even more beautiful because one of the (many) daily power shutdowns just happens to be the couple hours around sundown.  The sky was cloudy too so the town was almost black except for the lanterns.