[Recap] - Sri Lanka New Year Virtual Meetup - Apr 2020

Meet-ups
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Sinhala and Tamil New Year is celebrated every year on the 13th and 14th of April here in Sri lanka. All Sri Lankan’s cook, eat and start work for new year at the same auspicious time. Many New year festivals and celebrations are held during this season. Also several traditional folk games come to the fore during the festive season. Unfortunately this year’s situation has cancelled all gatherings and festivals.

So I decided to share Sri Lanka’s New Year traditions and spirit with other local guides from this virtual meetup. What made this meetup so special was 15th was the first year anniversary of my meetups as host and this was my 10th meetup since my first meetup Gampaha New year Photo walk 2019.

Screenshot of some participants of the meetup
Screenshot of some participants of the meetup1366×768 172 KB

First, all the participants in the meetup were introduced them selves. Around 30 local guides from different countries participated in the meetup in addition to Sri Lanka . I then outlined the objectives and the opening talk. All those who came in added new year greetings to us.

Local guides presenting their screens during the meetup
Local guides presenting their screens during the meetup2392×1344 678 KB

First, @IlankovanT described his experience of celebrating the New Year in accordance with Hindu traditions in Sri Lanka. He also presented a bowl of sweets to everyone in attendance. Then I made an introduction to the New Year celebrations in Sri Lanka by sharing pictures of the New Year festival we organized in 2019 at the Sunday school I’ve been volunteering for 12 years. A lot of local guides from outside asked many questions and had an interesting discussion about our traditional folk games. @ravindus further explained about our New Year traditions. Many photos of traditional foods and sweets he presented made our mouths watering. Next I showed everyone homemade traditional confectionery and made a brief description of those sweets.

Screen shot of few local guides during the meetup
Screen shot of few local guides during the meetup1366×768 167 KB

Afterwards, everyone exchanged views about their New Year celebrations and other festivals. Then we all had a good conversation. Although the timelines were up, our discussion dragged on for more than two hours.

Here is the link to shared photo album of the meetup.

Enjoy the recap video

We had local guides from different parts of the world including Michigan USA, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Cyprus and Pakistan.

List of Participants

  1. Mostofa Tanvir Ahmed (@TanvirAhmed05) from Bangladesh
  2. Devi Dimitra Maksum ( @Ddimitra ) from Indonesia
  3. Rumal Vindula (@Rumal95) from Sri Lanka
  4. Stephen Abraham ( @StephenAbraham ) from Malaysia
  5. Anil Singh (@Anil6969) from India
  6. Erna LaBeau ( @Erna_LaBeau ) from Detroit, Michigan, USA
  7. Saiyen Azad ( @Saiyen ) from Bangladesh
  8. Ravindu Samarasinghe (@ravindus) from Sri Lanka
  9. Raj Patel
  10. Satnam Alhan (@Satnam_Alhan) from India
  11. Naresh Darji ( @NareshDarji ) from Gujarat India
  12. Raju Royal (@rajuroyal) from India
  13. Solaiman Hossain ( @SolaimanHossain ) from Bangladesh
  14. Md. Reazul Hoque (@RHoqueBD) from Bangladesh
  15. Brian Images (@br14n) from Indonesia
  16. Nissa Isma (@Annisa1208) from Indonesia
  17. Mahabub Hasan (@MahabubMunna) from Bangladesh
  18. Sabbir Ahmed (@SabbirShawon) from Bangladesh
  19. Pandya Jitendra (@Jitendra_pandya) from India
  20. Sandeep Nirvan (@Sandeepnirvan) from India
  21. Nitish Gautam (@Nitishgautam) from Agra India
  22. Terry Goodman (@TerryGoodman) from Nigeria
  23. Bilal Shiakh
  24. Alpha Sumareh (@Alffiiy) from Cyprus
  25. Ilankovan Thushyantha (@IlankovanT) from Sri Lanka
  26. Nissa Isma ( @Annisa1208 ) from Indonesia
  27. Hafiz Muhammad Saqib (@hmsofficial92) from Pakistan
  28. Yukthi Isuranaga (@Yukthi_Isuranga) from Sri Lanka
  29. SMA Sayeed (@sma_sayeed) from Bangaladesh
  30. Guru Krishna Priya Sreenath (@Gurukrishnapriya) from India
  31. Thejas Jani
  32. Sanjay Paul (@PaulSanjay) From India
  33. Narendra Mithun

Thank you all of you for participating and for the contributions made in the meetup.

62 Likes
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IMG_20200416_215724.jpg
IMG_20200416_215724.jpg1564×1564 168 KB

Special collage for the special host @kasunaaa

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@TanvirAhmed05 , @Rumal95 @Anil6969 @RHoqueBD @SabbirShawon @thehmsofficial @Yukthi_Isuranga

@MahabubMunna @AlphaSays @Nitishgautam

I’m tagging you guys so that you won’t miss this recap. Thank you!

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@StephenAbraham it was honor to have you in my meetup. Thank you very much for the screenshot. I’m Impressed. I’ve joined your meetup today afternoon and I took some screenshots as well. :grinning:

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@kasunaaa , Great meetup. I enjoyed a lot. It was a happy time to remember and discuss about our new year celebrations, rituals even though we can’t do most of them this time. And it made special because we could share it with participants from a around the world.

Super job super meetup…!!!

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@kasunaaa Brother thank you so much for tagging me.I really enjoyed a lot…I wish i could visit… Thanks for this nice recap and hosting this meetup…:smiling_face:

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Thanks @kasunaaa

For such a wondeeful meet I am really felt obliged to meet some of our friends for the first time in this connect virtual meet

The new year how celebration in India Bangla desh and srilanka and other part of the world so differently and in different date and surprised that having different year too was really astonishing for few LG across the world that they never knew,

Specially in this locked down virtual meet make the world so small and LG so connected that we all Trully seems a :family_man_woman_girl_boy: family

Thanks for inviting me and honored to be part of your new year meet

Thanks and regards

I am tagging to some of my friend

So they should also have a look of your recap and recording glimpses

@Shrut19

@TravellerG

@user_not_found

@Gurukrishnapriya

@Falguni

@user_not_found

@STEVE_1

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Thank you so much @kasunaaa for the wonderful meet up

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Hi, @kasunaaa

Due to Covid-19 it’s true that you can’t celibate the fastival like randomly celebrated in the last year but it’s spreads more then approximately12720 kilometers, and successfully we celebrate with you :heart: , there is no doubt that your organized hosting through us a happy party. It was fun.

Thank you :blush: .

Thanks all of the attendees for admitting me and supporting my activities. I got my another family here.

Thanks Google Maps and connect forum for giving me that opportunity.

#LocalGuides

#virtualmeetup

#Happyguiding

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Congratulations everyone for arranging this wonderful virtual meetup. It was really great time with you @kasunaaa

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@kasunaaa

Thanks lot :+1:

First time I have attended the sri Lanka Meetup and I have enjoyed lot I am happy to say to that the new friends list Increases now via virtual meetup.

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I am from Bangladesh :bangladesh: .

Thanks a lot for arranging a awesome meetup during lockdown by pandemic situation all over the world. It was very helpful as well as very cordial which help us to know new thing, to make new relations with all LG and we want to know different area of Map and connect live . I hope we will arrange more virtual meetup by monthly to know more and more about map and others because through virtual meetup we can learn different topic easily from different location and from different fellow LG by their cordial attendance. Pls keep it up. Stay Home till the recovery of the epidemic. Insha Allah we will recover the present unwanted situation soon by the help of ALLAH. Take care and keep me in your prayer pls​:heart: :heartbeat: :heart: :heartbeat: :heart: :heartbeat: :+1: :pray: :pray:

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@ravindus thank you for being my partner for my every meetups. Yes we could make this new year more connected than ever with virtual meetups like this one

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@Anil6969 yes we can every bad moment to a good opportunity in another way. This virtual meetups brought many friends from different countries closer. Thank you for tagging your friends :blush:

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@TerryGoodman thank you for your interest to learn about our culture and participating in this meetup. Big love from Sri Lanka.

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@SolaimanHossain it was nice to have you in the meetup. Thank you for showing us your festival moments. This time is so different as you said. We made lot of friends having same intension from great distances. That was a rare opportunity. This will be a great start and we may continue this even after this Corona thing goes

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@TanvirAhmed05 anytime you are welcome to Sri Lanka brother. Thanks for participating and your interest

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@NareshDarji thank you for joining in. It was pleasure to have you in the meetup.

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@RoshanPatel happy to have you in the meeting. I love to have many friends. :hugs:

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@RHoqueBD it was pleasure to have you in this virtual meetup. Yes we can continue this virtual meetups even after this pendamic time. Stay safe! Hi five from Sri Lanka

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