Before skiing on Sunday, we had a New Year event to attend. Not a belated celebration for the arrival of 2014, but the big Karen New Year bash for 2753.
As with the last time I attended, it was held at the Boys and Girls Club in Albany. My mum came with me this time, and the Man - he and I were sporting traditional Karen tunics that my refugee friends had given us.
The sports hall was filling up with Karen families from all over upstate New York. There was saluting of flags, then speeches, and music and dancing. I learned that there are two completely different Karen languages, each one unintelligible to speakers of the other - so half the people in the room chatted amongst themselves through the speeches and songs in one language, and the other half chatted through the rest.
Because of our afternoon plans, we had to leave before the end, but we got a good taste of the festivities - literally, in fact, because as we were leaving kind people pushed food boxes into our hands to take away with us.
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