"A Cleansing Party" Like I've Never Known Before

In Sri Lankan culture, when a girl starts her period for the first time in her life, she begins a week worth of transition, parties, cleansing and a whole lot more of what I'd never even heard of. Ribinsing is one of Johnson's cousins, and last week she officially became a lady. I joined the girls "party" and filmed and photographed the whole experience.

When I arrived that evening, Ribinsing was in a room of her house. According to custom, she must stay inside that room for the entire week of her flow. The only time to leave would be for a time of washing and if she needs to use the toilet (aka squatty). When the first star appeared in the sky, all of Ribinsing's aunties and mom had everything prepared and in this first picture are walking her out of the room to the front yard. There her sister and many cousins and aunties are waiting with large sarongs forming a little shower area.

Next, one of her aunties begins to pour water over her; this is how most girls in Sri Lanka shower, in an open area and fully clothed. I'm not quite sure how they get fully clean.

The next part was a little weird to me. They lit candles on some weird looking food and did circles with it around her body. Later Johnson told me that this whole ceremony comes from a Hindu background. This yet again opened my eyes to a culture that can so easily fall into "well its just culture" kind of mindset. Johnson's family members are mostly Christians , but can tend to still go with the culture.

Then they brought Ribinsing back in her room in front of this mirror. They took her head covering off and had her look in this mirror. I was happy that they had a Bible laying in front of this little area. Plain rice is sitting there for her to eat and bland plain rice is all she can eat for the week. They make a tumeric paste (which is one of the spices we put in curry), and wipe it all over her body and face. She is not allowed to shower with soap for the entire week, only water.

This is her face at the end of it all. I wouldn't be too thrilled either.

After the cleaning of Ribinsing was done, all of the girls at the party began to chase each other and wipe tumeric all over each others' faces. You can't really see it on Sharmerly's face, but we were both covered with tumeric. Girls think that tumeric makes their skin lighter (as we know most dark people in the world want to be light and most light people want to be dark). They also use it as a means to help take away pimples and put it on wounds. It's there all around home remedy.

Well Ribinsing ended up falling asleep and all of the rest of the party danced and ate for the next few hours. When her week is over she will have a big party. And I think she will enjoy this one. She will get to take a good shower, get all dressed up in a Sari, put lots of make-up on and enjoy a night with family and friends. I will show you that party....coming soon....