Happy New Year With Love.. By Dulanasa

Smiling Faces and Singing Songs- By Methula

It is the New Year day for our tiny island nation- Sri Lanka today….(not only Chinese have their separate new year, you know..) Living in a far away country , surrounded by a totally different culture, sweet memories started  flooding through my mind just thinking about it….., How vibrant must it be the atmosphere there now…

Noises.. the chaos… laughter… chatting away about ” nothing” with family and friends… We truly miss it… We envy you folks there… ( and oh.. the food… no class structure there my friends. Everybody share the tradition of food.. the sweet ” oil cakes” , milky sticky rice cut in to squares.. amazing)

Let’s do not give up folks.. Let’s do something.. My wife started to make ” milk rice” in our tiny kitchen in our apartment, where we live now. Smells soon started to fill the apartment of sweet oil cakes… Soon we were smiling… Happy faces… Culture and it’s roots can not be killed… We smell our food and we smell our culture… Sweet aroma of your tiny island motherland… here we go..

I invited my 4 year old son- Methula- and 7 year old daughter -Dulansa- to draw a picture and express their feelings, for me to understand what it means for them to celebrate a new year of a “distant country”  and a culture which means a lot to their parents…

My daughter named her drawing as ” Happy new year with Love”…. Amazing… Look at my son wanted to name his drawing- ” Smiling faces and Singing Songs” .. Isn’t it a wonderful expression, I thought. What  it means for them is love, smiling faces and singing hearts…Isn’t that the life?

Is that what we searched for all through out, changing countries and living away from your loved ones.. Have we got there yet…? Happy Sri Lankan New Year to you too folks….