paint fight

One of the great things about having friends from such diverse backgrounds means the chance to enjoy many different holidays and celebrations. On Friday, my friends and I went to the Indian Embassy to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of color. They were giving out packets of colored powder, which are smeared on others for maximum color effect. The powder can also be combined with water to make a paste, which is used to continue to paint your friends. We also "borrowed" boxes of water to use in a large water fight on the lawn, so that after about an hour we looked like clowns in a sprinkler. But not scary ones! There was also a bar, delicious Indian food for sale, and plenty of Bollywood dance music. (Photo above, more on Facebook.)

Also, later on Friday (after a shower to wash the paint off, though in retrospect it would have been hilarious to walk around Zamalek splattered in paint for the facial expressions alone), I went to an AIESEC event called Global Village. This is the event that most AIESEC chapters will host eventually, and it's kind of AIESEC's signature thing. I am a pretty bad AIESECer -- I have not been to an event in ages -- but I thought this one sounded pretty cool.

Basically, there are booths for different countries, and each one is manned by a trainee (what I am) from that country, who is supposed to bring along things that represent their country: posters, food, music, etc. The America booth (other AIESECers represented, I just stopped by as a visitor) featured some Obama paraphenalia, peanut butter sandwiches, etc. The Morocco booth had what were possibly the best cookies ever. The girls manning the Japan booth spent the entire day in full-length kimonos.

This happened to be a good time for Global Village since Egypt is currently hosting an international AIESEC conference in Sharm this week, so they had loads of extra people from more countries to be at the booths. It was held in these gardens along the Nile, and they had a few local bands playing music also. I stopped by with a few other trainees I am friends with, we browsed the booths, enjoyed the weather, and then left together to get dinner. Many of the Egyptian AIESECers I am friends with asked why I never go to events and made me feel sufficiently guilty, so maybe I will try to go to more things this spring. Does it count as a New Year's Resolution in March?