Tihar, also known as the festival of light in Nepal, is a five day long Hindu celebration which champions the victory of good over evil, light over dark. Aesthetically, Tihar is one of Nepal’s most beautiful festivals and Nanda was keen for the international venturers to experience this, decorating the training centre with candles and flowers as well as creating a ‘Rangoli’.
In this tradition, families come together to create a circle of flowers, rice and coloured chalk which is left for the 5 days of the festival to bring good luck. To round off the evening, Nanda played some traditional festival music and international and Nepali venturers joined together for a dance.
With everyone in good spirits after the celebrations, it was time for community allocation. This time, Penny had a trick up her sleeve to liven up the process! On their project planning visits, Volunteer Managers had snapped photos of some key individuals – ex-policeman Man Bahadur from Baltar, Normaya Shresta of Adhikari Gaun and Ama and Buwa of Chapthok. These pictures were cut into several pieces with the names of the venturers written on the back-making the putting together of a jigsaw puzzle the first group activity of the new teams!
Following a day of team-building activities, it was time to pack the bags once more as the venturers headed off to the communities for the next stage of their adventure.
(front left) Krishna, Natalie, Sinead (VM), Tara, Eliza, Louise
(front left) Andej, Feline, Jitendra, Grishma, Ying Lin, Maddy (VM)
(front left) Sally (VM), Jenny (VM), Nishchalta (VM), Eden, Sameer, Mishan