Sri Lankan families in the ‘Australian Alps’ last Sunday celebrated the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in traditional style for the second successive year.
Members of about 40 expatriate families from the coastal town of Merimbula and Cooma in the Snowy Mountains, joined Lankan immigrant families to engage in the lighting of the traditional oil lamp and boiling of milk, sharing of food and participation in traditional games. The expatriates comprising about 200 family members of engineers, technicians, surveyors and others working in the Snowy 2 project, and well-wishers turned the Lions Park in Cooma into a riot of colour.
The ambitious Snowy 2 project is the linking of two dams by 27 km of tunnels, and the building of an underground power station to provide large scale storage and renewable energy on demand. It follows the historic post World War II Snowy Scheme which collects the melting snow of the Kosciuszko mountains to generate hydroelectricity and for irrigation.
Bright and colourful dresses of Batik shirts and sarongs of males competed with the lungis and tops of the females on the sunny autumn day.
Cooma Multicultural Centre Manager Yvi Henderson dressed in a Batik saree and Steven Thorne, from the Future Generation Joint Venture, lit the traditional oil lamp, along with well-wishers and a cross section of young and old.
Amidst cheers and applause the pot of milk boiled over and chief organiser Udaya Liyanage welcomed the crowd to participate in the traditional Avurudhu feast of Kiribath, Kavun, Kokis, Dodol and other delicacies.
A quiet prayer of hope, peace and abundance for the people of their native land meant that though far, they were not forgotten. Festivities went on late into the evening, with guests taking part in tug-of-war, `kana- mutti’ and other traditional games.
