Holly Days: Holi Krishna- Festival of Colors

So this past weekend, my roommate Karen and I drove down to Provo for the Festival of Colors. It's a holiday celebrated in the indian culture called Holi Krishna. I went down and stayed with my best friend from home Tabitha. On saturday morning, we got up and drove down to Spanish Fork. We wanted to go early so we could get a better parking spot than last year (i.e. having to walk a mile through a cow pasture and falling into a giant manure/mud pond) and we wanted to go to a little diner and get breakfast. BRILLIANT IDEA! There was no traffic and we actually got a spot IN the parking lot where the Hindu Temple was.

But basically, the festival was AWESOME! There was SO many people that you were basically chest to chest with EVERYONE! We got there and hour early, only to find that the colors weren't going to be thrown until 1:00 when we thought it was 12:00. People were getting restless so some people started early. TJ opened a corner of his chalk and had fun secretly sprinkling it on peoples hair until he full out EXPLODED it into my left eye! Ouch... But more people kept coming and we were getting restless, so TJ and Devon just started counting down randomly until the crowd around us joined in. Then it all BLEW UP! People threw their paint in the air and there was a giant cloud of colored chalk! It was SO thick in the air that you couldn't see a foot away from you. And no matter what you did, you inhaled it and it got into your eyes. You had to cough and spit to get it out and you didn't even care if you spit on someone because that stuff tasted NASTY.

The dust settled after ten minutes and when you looked around, every one looked like a psychedelic rendition of themselves. But mainly you were just straight orange or brown because the colors mixed together. And everyone's nose and mouth was straight black from trying to breathe and spit. And don't try to smile for the camera because your teeth will look worse.

It was SO much much, but totally exhausting. When we got back to Tab's we took turns showering. The paint isn't actually paint. It's a colored chalk that gets in EVERYTHING. Now be warned as you look at the pictures below. My hair was down and my hair is a very dark brown if not black. When I showered, I had to wash my hair THREE times and each time it came out straight black! But overall an amazing weekend, even if I may or may not have developed "the Purple Lung"!

P.S. I took my Polaroid camera instead of my Nikon. I didn't want to risk getting it chalky!