Friendship Day

There are lots of holidays here that we don’t celebrate in the US. One is “Friendship Day.” Its along the same lines as Father’s day or mother’s day…only you celebrate your friends instead. So for the few days before and after the actual friendship day (the first Sunday in August, I think) – friends tie ribbons on your wrist as a sign of friendship. Its actually quite fun. My only complaint is the tendency to tie the bands so tight they cut off circulation. On Friendship day I saw 2 dogs who apparently had friends. They both had ribbons tied on both their front paws. I thought it was a little on the cruel side (one of the dogs was trying to get his friendship bands off, but couldn’t. I tried to help…but apparently I didn’t qualify as a friend. He wouldn’t let me close!) but it was also cute/funny.

We had friendship day celebrations in two of the homes we partner with. We bought snacks and did a program. We brought ribbons for the girls to tie on one another, and talked about being a true friend. I told a story about friendship and the aftercare staff translated for me. This was the first time that I’d been to either of these homes – and I loved it. It was so good to start getting to know some of the girls that I’ve heard so much about. And it was fun to be able to use my language skills. Its always amazing to me how much excitement I get for stumbling over a few phrases in Hindi or Bengali. But I also love that I can speak in their language – and how that communicates how much I value them and their culture.

I’m glad I’ve been introduced to Friendship Day!