Saturday, October 21, 2006

A party nation....

Today is Divali...It is the festival of lights...

"Divali is the most jovial of all Hindu festivals.... it marks the victory of righteousness over evil in the Hindu mythology. Traditionally, clay oil lamps were placed in front of every home turning the island into a fairyland of flickering lights; these have now been replaced mostly by decorative electric lights."

We've got 15 statutory holidays in MU whereas there are only 10 stat holidays in CA.
But of the 15 stat hols we have this year, 6 fell during the week-ends. Yes, in MU, we don't have stat holidays moved to Mondays or Fridays, they are fixed by whichever religious bodies have authority because they follow the festivals of the different faiths on the island.

The richness of the Mauritian culture comes from the different religions that make up the Mauritian population. We, mauritians, as a nation, we celebrate all the festivals from Chinese New Year to Eid-ul-Fitr. We share the cakes and the good wishes and the good humour and the diversity. That's way better than having BANK holidays, for example. :P
One of my Canadian friends asked the other day about Thanksgiving. No, we don't have thanksgiving here in MU, not because we don't have anything to be thankful for, it's just not something we have set up here by the first immigrants.

Check out the list of festivals and the list of holidays for 2006 in MU.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Divali is when i get loooooooooads of goodies to eat ..miaam ..miaaaam