Happy Phagwha

Wow, I've officially been in Guyana for one year. Phagwha is the first national holiday that I experienced. In fact, you can look at the beginning of this blog and find picture of last year's Phagwha.

This year I spent Phagwha in Leguan with Liz (it's her island), Pam, Malane, and Cindy. Leguan has a very large Indo-Guyanese population, so we thought it's be a good place to enjoy the Hindu holiday. We arrived Saturday afternoon. We didn't take part in any activities because we were tired and hungry. But that night people lit a big bonfire called a hooka. I heard you have to run around it a bunch of times. Why? I don't know.

Instead of running around the hooka, we made spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. Did you know that PCVs are bonafide health freaks? Yes, it's true. The spaghetti was wheat pasta, the sauce had tofu in it, we used balsamic vinegar for dressing, and the bread was made with whole wheat flour. Side note: the bread had basil and thyme mixed in the dough; it was delicious. Don't get me wrong. The food was yummy; however, volunteers are obessed with eating healthy. Mostly because Guyanese never pass up the opportunity to tell you that you look more fat. And you know that as American girls we are already self-conscious about our bodies.

The next day we got up early considering we stayed up late gaffing. For breakfast we had eggs and pumpkin pancakes. I made the pumpkin pancakes and everyone loved them, hehehe :) Around 10AM the neighborhood kids attacked us with water and colored powder. After a good splash we joined the group on the road going from house to house throwing water and powder. It was fun but cold. Cindy and Pam after playing Phagwha.

Me after playing Phagwha

My hand before bathing.

My hand after bathing.

When we all had bathed doing our best to scrub of the color, we sat around relaxing. For lunch we had humus on herbed bread and some pine. Then it was Malane and Liz's idea to watch Season 2 of Veronica Mars. I remeber hearing about the show, but I never really watched it before I left the States. Well, know I'm seriously addicted. We watched 7 hours worth of episodes!!! Luckily, Malane and Liz had already seen the episodes we were watching, so they made burritos for dinner. All in all it was a nice Phagwha.