My name is Deepa Sawant Kamath. This 2020 year is very special for everyone. From February till June everyone was working from home and with a reduction in my working hours, I got a chance to learn a lot of things. For the last 3 months my Zumba instructor made sure that I would attend virtual Zumba. They sent reminder messages on Whatsapp and FB to attend class every day without any charge. I think she is no less diligent than front line workers in making sure that everyone in our class is online. During this pandemic, I learnt Coffee paintings and Warli paintings too. Also, I made lots of new Maharashtrian friends as we are from different regions of Maharashtra and learnt a lot of new recipes from each other. We used to bring bread from the store, instead I learnt to bake cake and bread at home.
One of the friend’s daughters got engaged. We participated in an online Zoom meeting and also saw mehendi and Haldi pictures. Family time is the best time. In our house we have table tennis equipment for the last 3 years but because of lockdown free time we all enjoyed playing table tennis at home. Basketball and Badminton become evening sports. A backyard party with family is cherry on top. Gardening time was a fun time to chit chat with neighbours. We prayed everyday and within this 5 months, came to know the value and importance of prayer. We saw God in the form of Doctors and frontline workers who were there for us.
As kids missed graduation this year, I arranged two different graduation ceremonies this year.
This year because of COVID-19, Chicago Kali Bari temple, Glen Ellyn conducted a free summer camp 2020. Chicago Kali Bari (CKB) is a house of Spirituality and worship. As described in Bengali, Chicago Kali Bari (CKB) was founded in 2018 by Dr. Ram Chakroborty, to share and encourage spiritual enlightenment with our fellow ‘Sisters and Brothers ‘of America. CKB strives to be a place where our youth can gather to listen, to question and to continue and incorporate cultural ideals and heritage in their daily lives. It preaches peace and unity. I am also a part of Gajanan Maharaj Chicago parivar, Glen Ellyn.
The CKB Summer Camp 2020 was held from 02nd – 30th June 2020 for coding, Painting, Origami, Biology Lab, Food recipes and Science experiments,Vedic Maths,Geo Bee, Baking, Chess master and Reading with fun. I was fortunate to conduct a Food recipes and Science experiment camp for 4-9 yr olds. Here are a few pictures of summer camp.
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In this 5 week camp I taught kids to make kids recipes like Yogurt parfait, Veg mayo sandwich, Banana Pop, Apple Butterflies, Banana Caterpillar, Apple Spiders and everyone liked a mouth full of each. We also did Science projects every alternate week including fun ones such as Invisible Ink,Tornado in bottle and Cloud in the bottle. We talked about food digestion and about how the heart and lungs work, and also about fingerprints types.
| दीपा सावंत कामथ Glendale Heights, IL |  |
