[caption id="attachment_1285" align="alignnone" width="2880"]
Photo from Matt[/caption]Holi Festival, or the Festival of Colors, is a festival to celebrate the end of winter and coming of spring, and the victory of good over evil. On this festival, people smear colored powders on each other's face or throw them at each other while singing and dancing. As far as I know, having the colored powder on your body during the festival means that you have let go of your grudges or hate towards something or someone. Or, finally moving on from something that hurt you or angered you. Thus, the victory of good over evil.
[gallery ids="1283,1284,1279,1278" type="rectangular"]
Since I really loved the idea of colored powders, especially with the Color Manila Run that I had joined previously, I really wanted to experience the festival. However, it's only celebrated during March and I couldn't go to India yet.
I was so ecstatic when one of my closest friend, Matt, who had been very supportive of my India dreams, found a Holi Festival event that will be happening in Manila. We were very eager to attend the event that was organized by Asia Society Philippines. I even started listening to this Holi Festival playlist on Spotify and then imagining what it would be like when we're finally celebrating Holi.
Somehow, since Matt had been active in volunteering activities, he found that Asia Society Ph were looking for volunteers for the event. Though we found out about it a day after the deadline of submission of volunteer applications, we still tried to send our applications through email. Thankfully, we got accepted and were able to be part of the organization of the event.
It was my first volunteer activity. And, as anxious as I am, I was glad that I was able to work with new people. Matt was assigned on stage management so we were really far from each other.
[caption id="attachment_1290" align="alignnone" width="1920"]
Matt took a photo of me behind the Registration booth since I couldn't join them at the party yet.[/caption]During the event, I was the usherette of the Registration booth. I had to direct people on which line they should queue on. It was a little difficult for me since I was really scared of talking to strangers, and what more, in English (I'm not really fluent in verbal English). At one point, one of the VIP attendee from the festival (which I wasn't sure if he was the Ambassador of India in Manila or his friend) asked me why I didn't have color on my face. I got kind of scared because I wasn't sure if we were required to smear colored powder while on the Reg booth. But he laughed later on and said that it would be better if I have some color on.
[gallery ids="1287,1288" type="rectangular"]
I got to totally enjoy the event when our booth closed. I was lucky that I still got to join Matt and Inah on the last countdown for throwing the colored powder.
[caption id="attachment_1277" align="alignnone" width="2880"]
Photo from Matt.[/caption]I was so happy to be able to party and let loose even with a bad headache (because I had to wake up early) and tired legs (because I was standing for how many hours). I was also kind of surprised with myself because, somehow, I wasn't conscious with my dancing. The Indians were really cute though. They had their choreography while dancing to the DJ's mix and they like throwing their friends in the air or putting them on their shoulders. Too bad, the videos I took were gone when my SD card got formatted :(
[gallery ids="1282,1281,1280" type="rectangular"]
Asia Society Philippines has been organizing this event for 6 years. I'm really glad that we weren't too late to find out about it this year. I hope next year we can attend again.
Happy Holi!
