Lizard Man's Travels

This site is a journal of my travels and other adventures while I shift from doing postdoctoral research on tree frog ecology in Darwin, Australia, to research on digestive physiology of lizards and bats in Sede Boqer, Israel. Enough friends have been asking me for regular updates on this journey, that I thought this would be the best forum to keeep everyone up to date (including me).

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Clara's birthday


Clara's birthday
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.
This weekend was quite the party time. First, there was Purim, the jewish holiday where people wear costumes and drink a lot. Then there was the Holi day festival for the Indian students. Finally we had a barbecue for Clara for her birthday. Really crazy stuff.

The Purim party was a good time. Some very good costumes. The best was a woman who dressed as a bedouin, with her boyfriend trailing along as the goat at the end of a rope leash. There were an assortment of aliens, dolls, babies, Mexicans, Indians (both Indian ones, and N. American ones), and a few that probably shouldn't be shown in the light of day. That was Friday.

On Saturday we had the Holi festival, the Indian festival of colors. That was really interesting. The celebration consists of a bonfire, followed the next day by throwing colored dyes all over each other (of course, this being Sede Boqer, we did this in the reverse order). There is a story that goes along with this festival, that is a bit long for me, but you can find a lot of internet sites with the story. Basically, there was an evil king, and his good son. There was a plot among the gods to burn him alive, but the woman who was flame proof died instead (hence the bonfire). The king was then overthrown and there was much rejoicing (hence the colors). Here, we had some colors, and a lot of some black powder, so a lot of us ended up with black faces. In India, apparently the colors are a bit longer lasting and people are dyed for weeks after the festival.

Finally, we had a birthday barbecue for one of the Colombians. That was a pretty typical barbecue, that ended in a game of "super facist" Taki. Taki is a card game a lot like Uno. The 'super facist' label is because we are pretty strict about holding people to the rules, and the punishments are wielded at the slightest provocation. For example, asking, "is it my turn" is rewarded by having to take two cards for not paying attention. Great fun!

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