George Washington called,

He wants his revolutionary war back.

So are the days of Diwali, the three day Bengali festival of lights which just so happens to coincide with Kali Puja, the Hindu festival celebrating the god Kali.
This blog will have to be short and sweet seeing as the internet shop closes in 15 minutes but I'll definitely write more about these celebrations in the next few days.

To kick off Diwali, Emily and I celebrated with the children at Daya Dan, Mother Theresa's home for mentally and physically handicapped children, where we work in the afternoon. We brought all of the boys that we work with on the first floor up to the roof to join children from the other two floors to watch the fireworks that would inevitably be going off all over the city, or so we thought. Once all the children were on the roof and running around like crazy the sisters brought out three giant bags of fire works and told us rather plainly to, "Help the children light them."
Astonished and quite sure we had misunderstood Sister Johnava's directions we asked, in unison, "Uh, excuse me?"
"Yes, yes help them"
"Okay?"
We gave each other a look that said, "Has this woman gone mad?" and proceeded to pull out all types of janky indian fireworks. Some sparklers, some rockets, some firecrackers, and best of all lots of danger. I myself having almost been Sudder Streets first eyeless tourist of the festival the night before from a faulty firework exploding in my face (Thank the good lord I wear enormous glasses) I was of course hesitant to hand over these little burning objects to children who can't fully control their body parts. I don't mean that in any offensive way at all but from an American perspective I hope you all can understand my hesitations here.
While I was reluctantly handing tiny sparklers to the older kids the sisters and the masi's were busy lighting fireworks that spin on the ground and shoot out sparks in a 6 foot radius and watching the kids run and shout like crazy. Eventually my hesitation gave way to the looks of pure joy on these kids' faces who spend most days in a monotonous routine of wake up, school, nap, eat, bed, all under the same roof and rarely even step outside. We shot off fireworks for about three hours and ended up staying about two hours later than normal. I can still picture the look on little Pooja's face when one of the whirling, ground-spinning, sparks-flying fire crackers made its way under her wheel chair. Her little legs dangling over the edge of the seat screaming in pure ecstatic joy.

well i'm getting kicked off the computer... More to follow. promise.