Day 63: Srimantham and Summer Camp

Alexis and I left Gitam University early this morning (after our sleepover) to go to a special ritual happening at a friends house. The ritual is called Srimantham and is performed/celebrated by pregnant women in the 7th month of their pregancy. Alexis' research is on pregnancy rituals and so she had waiting, and hoping, that we would eventually get to witness one of these. 

Srimantham has a few parts to it. First the family performs a puja (devotional prayer) to Ganesha. Then the pregnant woman is given LOTS of bangles to put on each arm. These bangles are meant to stay on until she gives birth as protection during delivery. Here she is with all her bangles in her mother's beautifully decorated house. When a woman is pregnant in India she goes to her mothers home for a few months before and after giving birth so that her mother can take care of her and relieve her of any stress. :) It's really cute how much the mothers seem to enjoy this. 

Next, family members and friends give their gifts. The majority of the gifts are sweets close family members gave sarees and money etc. 

Srimantham is actually a rather (comparatively) short ritual from those we have seen. It lasted less than an hour and it felt more like a baby/bridal shower than a religous ceremony. They fed everyone lunch afterward under these beautiful canopies. There were LOTS of guests and we got to meet so many nice people. The whole family is very educated and speak a lot of English. I met two women who have children living abroad who I added to my list of contacts to visit soon.

When we left they gave each of us this gift! It is a beautiful wodden inlayed tray with sweets, a piece of cloth for a saree top and some bangles. Obviously this family is pretty well off but they are also some of the sweetest people :) They are relatives of that woman I interviewed a while back that I said I loved more than any of my informants here. 

To finish off our day we went out to see a movie tonight. An American movie! We saw "Non-stop" with Liam Neeson. It was pretty good and it felt great to see a movie in the theatre again.

As for news, I found out yesterday that I will be a counsellor at Camp Kesem this summer. Camp Kesem is an organization that provides the children of cancer patients a week of fun each summer through out America. Some BYU students run one of these camps in Utah and I am lucky enough to be on their team of counsellors this year. I really didn't think I was going to get the position! I thought that being in India would get in the way of training or that maybe I wouldn't seem prepared enough to do this. And I'm probably not but I feel like it is going to be one of those life changing weeks :) I can't wait! All day today I've been thinking about it... I wish I could somehow voice my excitement adequately or share it in a way that someone could understand. It's just so amazing to me what this camp does. Kids need to have a childhood!
(Google Camp Kesem if you want to find out more)

Love you lots everyone!
Stéf