Dayspring Pongal Celebrations

This week we celebrated Pongal festival, the harvest festival of Tamil Nadu, to give thanks for a bountiful harvest.

As Pongal festival is celebrated throughout the state of Tamil Nadu, all the children were home from school for the celebrations. Everybody took part in the cooking of the traditional pongal rice over the fire, which is allowed to overflow to represent the overflowing harvest of the season. The rice is then made sweet and fragrant with crushed jaggery sugar, cashews, coconut and cardamom.

On the second day we celebrated the festival Mattu Pongal, in which everybody gives thanks to the cows for their contribution to the harvest. This was another fun day, in which the cow, the calf and all the goats were decorated with yellow-painted horns, red kungumam powder, tinsel and balloons. The animals looked great! The sweet pongal rice is then prepared again in the same way, but this time it is shared with the cows.

The children had a wonderful time dancing, eating raw sugar cane, playing and painting colourful Pongal mandalas throughout Dayspring. Everyone enjoyed the celebrations, the traditions and the delicious food. Dayspring Home and the farm are looking forward to a plentiful year!

To see more, take a look at our video of the occasion: