Ethnic Arts Festival - "Love"

Hi. Last week, the diversity center held an ethnic arts festival themed 'love.' It was on Valentine’s Day, and being my first Ethnic Arts Festival at Luther, I was both curious and excited about seeing how it would turn out. The festival comprised many events, including cultural display, a dinner, and an evening show. It was indeed a colorful day at Luther, with the international students beautifully dressed in their cultural attires [I know... This isn't my cultural attire. I later went to change clothes]. I had my Ankara and local beads on.

At one o’clock that Saturday afternoon, international students set up tables for the various countries represented at Luther, displaying items peculiar to their home cultures. A student was present at each table to talk about his/her country and the various items displayed. These items included works of art, clothing, musical instruments, jewelry, photographs, maps, currency and lots more. And while some of these items were provided by the Diversity Center, some were brought from home by students. At the Nigerian table, I actually had a slingshot [I played with that a lot as a child] and many records from Nigerian artistes. More people than I had expected – both Luther students and visitors – came and were very interested in knowing more about my country. With great passion, I told them even more than they needed to know!

At four o’clock, we dissembled our tables and headed to the dinner in the Noble Room at four thirty. Tickets for the dinner were available for sale (although I got a free ticket for participating in the events). I don’t think I’ve ever eaten as ‘diverse’ a meal! It was a really nice buffet with delicacies from India, Ghana, Jamaica, Mexico and other countries. It was really good food, too. Although there were so many people there at the Noble Room, there was more than enough to eat. After the meal, we spent time taking lots of pictures, after which we went to the Center for Faith and Life (CFL) for the performances to start at seven o’clock.

The event kicked off with a display of each country’s flag. At the mention of our countries’ names, “flag-bearers” walked into the CFL to display our countries’ flags and walked across the stage. Written beautifully on the stage was the word ‘love’ translated into several languages. Following the flag-carrying were presentations from various groups. Among the presentations were dances, songs, dramas, a fashion parade and more. The presentations were indeed amazing and the audience seemed electrified by the performance. There was an interesting slide show presentation titled “The Africa They Don’t Show You.” It displayed pictures of really stunning sites in Africa and their exact locations. I was so excited when I saw the picture of Zuma Rock in Abuja! After two hours of presentations that had been nothing short of extraordinary, the Ethnic Arts Festival came to a close.

Concerning school work, right now in Paideia, we are supposed to be researching about a particular topic of interest. Each Paideia class has a topic chosen by the professor and my class is focusing on the Blues. Our research paper is supposed to take about 35% of our final grade. Frankly, I think this will be a lot of work, probably more work than I will have to do in my other classes. I really have to try to find a balance because my other classes are also pretty demanding. On Monday, we'll have our first Physics exam. Our professor already told us outright that he likes to set HARD questions so I have to stick my nose to that huge physics textbook all weekend [I don't expect it will be so fun a weekend]...