Christmas party!

We just came back from our staff Christmas party which was very fun. I've never been to a Christmas party before where I've had to worry about being too hot! And there's more than one reason it was so hot...first of all it was 30 degrees outside, second of all I was wrapped in 6 metres of fabric...a saree!

That was an experience in itself. Yesterday, Sangeetha and Nirangela took me shopping, from store to store to store. First the saree, then the saree blouse, then the saree underskirt, then the "bangles" (costume jewelery, very pretty!)
Then we had to worry about hemming the saree, and then of course, getting me into it. Not an easy process mind you. It reminded me of Mom fitting me for clothes she was sewing when I was a kid. Nirangela expertly wrapped me up and arranged the folds and re-arranged the folds, and pinned and pinned and pinned. Before I saw a saree close up, I though it was just wrapped around a bunch of times and thrown over your shoulder, but that is not at all true. The saree is tucked into the underskirt, then wrapped all the way around, then arranged over the shoulder for the right length, then taken off the shoulder again and folded a bunch of times to make pleats, then pinned a bunch, then arranged over the shoulder and pinned a bunch more. They kept getting after me for how I held my arm which was holding all the extra fabric. Apparently you're supposed to hold it a certain way.

There's no way I could have done that myself! I've left it partly pinned so I can try it out myself tomorrow for another Christmas party at one of the livelihood sewing centres. We'll see how that works, I'm not too hopeful.

Here's some photos of us at the party. (That's me 3 from the right!)

The top photo is of me signing in a Tamil choir. That also was an experience. The girls had to translate the words into the roman alphabet for me, but even then, you don't pronouce letters the same way as you might expect, so it took lots of practicing for me to get it right. Of course I had to practice almost as hard to try not to sing Jingle Bells with a Sri Lankan accent as I sang along with the girls! (That's Nirangela beside me, my saree dressing assistant)