International Women's Day: Visthar

On Monday we celebrated International Women's Day and we basically danced all day.

The week before, Rhati, who is the "house mother" to the Bandhavi girls told us she'd lend us saris to wear for the day. After breakfast (And I have to add that Ambryn and I woke up at 6:00, took a walk, showered and relaxed before breakfast...I'm really proud.) Rhati wrapped and pinned us into our saris-of-choice. In the morning we worked on our "American women's" presentation (an Alice Walker reading with some interpretive dance, translation, and repetition) and the festivities began at lunch time. We all ate with the girls in their festive quarters. They had been working ALL weekend (we felt quite lazy in comparison) preparing. After lunch we gathered with some drummers and some neighbors for a processional around the campus. We stopped at different places and DANCED. The purpose of the processional was to remind us of our connection to the earth. We stopped at the deep, dry well (decorated with palm fronds, oil lamps, flowers...) and we all scattered nine varieties of seeds, drank water in leaf cups (water from the dry well...from death, life), and watched the girls perform more songs and dances.

We then gathered in the open air alla for the program and then we REALLY danced. The girls said to Ambryn, "Auntie! Red!" because her face was all hot and sweaty. She had to try to explain that this happens to white people! (And if you know Ambryn, you know she dances hard.) We danced in our bare or flip-flopped feet, kicking up dust and emulating their cool moves, but those girls put us to shame. They had ceaseless energy, and when it was all over (a long while later) they served us all tea, pekoras, and biscuits. We feel quite lucky that an afternoon of "work" could be spent in such meaningful activities (these girls are so wise...so dedicated...so revolutionary) and that we danced with such wild abandon (in saris!) with a wide group of phenomenal people.

Check out this guy's moves!

Happy International Women's Day! As we learned from the girls, "Women's liberation is human liberation!"