out-of-culture experiences in colorado

Although these two events happened some time ago, I've been wanting to write about them. Both are out-of-culture experiences and were a wonderful reminder that it is possible to 'travel' within the city we live in.

We attended a Divali celebration at the Sikh Temple near Red Rocks - quite close to the amphitheater road, actually. Dozens of women wearing beautifully embroidered saris and scarves in pinks and golds, sewn with sequins and shimmering beads sat on the right side. Men with orange head coverings sat on the other. Throughout the service, three men with beards and head wraps, all in white, chanted songs in Punjabi. Several words repeated sounded Indonesian and probably are related through Sanskrit origins. For the hour-long service, another man waved what looked like an enormous mop-like duster over what seemed to be a child's crib. In fact, it was the Holy book, passed down through a line of teachers (Gurus) until the book itself replaced those teachers and is now called The Guru. Toddlers walked between the mens' and womens' sections. When the singing was over, we moved downstairs where we sat back-to-back in long rows on the floor and received helpings of dahl, saag, yoghurt, ice-cream, sweets, and bread on styrofoam trays. Afterwards we had dark chai upstairs and The Guru was placed in its bedroom for the night. People bowed at the door to The Guru before leaving, walking out past the rows of tiny glowing candles and lanterns that the children were balancing on the outer ledges of the building.

A few weeks ago, Greg and I decided at the last minute to go to a Baha'i Holy Day celebration at a man's house. This particular celebration falls in the middle of the night and we left our home at 10pm. We entered the man's furnished basement and went around the room shaking everyone's hand, to find that we were the only non-Persians! Later, three other non-Persians entered into the crowd of 30 or so Iranian-Americans. It seemed that out of our Baha'i community of over 150, this was a cultural gathering. Why else would you be out so late on a weekday? Certainly not very diverse as Baha'i events tend to be, but way more fun than the average Holy Day. It felt much like being in Indonesia as prayers and stories were told in Farsi. Then we had a break to drink tea and eat semolina halvah and a rice and chicken pudding very closely related to Chinese jook. Then prayers and readings continued and didn't end until after 1am!