The Bhutanese spend holy days undertaking meritorious activities such as renovating monuments, fixing roads and bridges and clearing streams. On a holy day, such as the 15th of the 1st month, people traditionally repainted the sacred monuments including temples, stupas and mani walls. Before the day for painting the monuments, they would go to collect the chalk white soil and the red soild from wherever they are found. The soil would be then cleaned, sieved and mixed glue before being used to paint the monuments.