Diwali at AES

For several days now, the elementary and middle schoolers have been making diyas (small clay candleholders) and rangoli. For the older students, potters came to school and helped them learn how to shape diyas from clay; then they were decorated and dried in the sun. Younger students simply decorated them. All students have made rangoli by many of the entrances to school buildings at some point. The various school offices have holiday boxes of nuts and dried fruit, and some Indian faculty and staff have strung lights, made rangoli, set out diyas. And on Thursday afternoon, when literally hundreds of children come from the shantytown behind the school to be entertained by AES students in games and activities, they were welcomed by more than the usual orangeade and snacks: a full range of rangoli greeted them by the entrance.

Diwali mubarak! (that's half Hindi, half Urdu ... the standard greeting; gives you a clue as to how many-layered multi-cultural everything is. Great when it works well, deadly when it doesn't.)