Novruz

The Persian holiday of Nowruz is celebrated (under slightly different spellings :) ) all over this part of the world.  In Kazakhstan it's known as Nauriz, and here in Azerbaijan, we have Novruz.

Essentially, it's a holiday celebrating spring and the new year.  Each country has its own take on it, though, with its own unique traditions.  Some of those traditions here in AZ include:

• Semani- about a month beforehand, we started noticing little plastic plates of grass for sale everywhere- the supermarket, the metro, on the street.  The main day of the holiday, you're supposed to surround it with fruit and nuts and put candles in the grass and light them.  One woman said that you should let the candles burn all night, so that there's no darkness in your home, but that seemed a bit dangerous to us!
• Trick-or-treat!  Only here, the children place an empty hat outside your door, ring the bell, and then run away and hide while you fill it (with much healthier treats than Halloween usually boasts of).  They come back for it once you're inside again.
• Fire jumping- Every Tuesday of the month leading up to Novruz, they build bonfires for people to jump over.  The idea is that when you jump over it, all your bad deeds/vibes/etc are burned away, leaving you with a fresh start to the new year.  In our courtyard, they had a smaller fire to the side with kids as young as 4 and 5 jumping it!

I definitely tried my hand at fire jumping, and while we caught it on video, you can't really see me in it.  So here's a video I took earlier on of some of our neighbors. 

The two days before the holiday, we celebrated Novruz with our students at the kindergarten.  On Monday we learned about spring, baby animals, and how plants grow.  And then Tuesday was just one big school-wide party!  Some of the kids wore traditional costumes.

Meyva, the 2-year-old daughter of one of the Turkish teachers

Here's a little montage I made with some of the videos we took:

 

Happy Novruz!