Tihar (also called Deepawali) is the Festival of Lights, a big celebration in Nepal that falls this year on November 19. In preparation for Tihar, we clean the house and make everything look as good as possible so that we can welcome the Goddess Laxmi, who arrives on the third day of Tihar.
The boys built a beautiful garden trellis and path to the stupa.
The first day of the festival is Kag Puja, a celebration of crows; the second day is Kukur Puja, celebrating the close relationship between humans and dogs – our two Ama Ghar dogs get spoiled more than ever on that day! And the third day is Gai Tihar, celebrating the sacred cows of the Hindu religion. On the evening of that day, we light a path of oil lamps or candles to welcome Laxmi, the goddess of prosperity and wealth.
Painting the front of the house in preparation for Laxmi’s visit.
This year at Ama Ghar, our Tihar preparations utilized the boys’ new welding skills – they made us a new garden trellis, a new ironing table, and most important of all, new soccer goal posts. Our biggest ongoing job is to make more garden plots for vegetables and transferring worms from our worm farm to the garden, but we also painted the front section of the house and finished the entrance road so we’ll be ready for Laxmi’s arrival. We hope she brings us (and you) a prosperous year!
Volunteers help the older girls weed the flower beds.