Last week was Guru Nanak's Birthday. This is a big holiday for Sikhs. Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh religion and the first of their 10 Gurus. In many ways, this holiday is a celebration of the beginning of Sikhism. We live in a neighborhood that has a very high population of Sikhs, so our neighborhood is abuzz with all the festivities!
The other day (a few days before his birthday), I walked out of my house to see this:
It was one of the many parades that took place last week. We had at least one parade a day for a week! Some days there were multiple parades. Since it's an important date then there were also a lot of weddings as well. It was quite an exciting week!!
Here are some of the kids getting ready for the parade.
This is one of the trucks for the parade.
There are multiple Sikh Schools in our neighborhood and they each had something to do in the parade.
Here are a few of the groups marching down the street. Most of the banners and things were written in Punjabi.
These kids were funny. They had these funny little hula hoops that they moved to the beat of the drums.
These kids did the same thing but with what looked like little dumbells :) haha!
I thought these girls were cute.
In one of the parades there was a group of guys doing all kinds of interesting tricks with different things. This boy was spinning a metal spikey ball around - yikes!!! (I also love that he's wearing Converse shoes with his outfit) :)
Some girls dressed up.
This guy was with one of the bands... he had these fun metal maracas :)
This guy was spinning this cool rope thing with beads on the end. It looked like fun :)
At one point towards the end of that parade they had a big water truck come by and they were washing the street. I thought it was the end of the parade, but....
... then this guy came. He had a big horn and was walking barefoot (along with the other guys behind him). After the street in front of him was cleaned, he blew his horn and everyone followed him.
With him were some men with swords and a tractor carrying a copy of their holy book (their 11th and final guru of the Sikhs).
Here are the men with swords... yes, they are real!
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