Weekend Festivities

Talk about a busy weekend! With the Festival of Nations performances on Friday and Saturday, homework assignments due left and right, and trying to squeeze in some quality pleasure reading time, I was finally granted the luxury of taking a 6-hour nap after church. Allow me to backtrack on the weekend festivities...

- Festival of Nations. Earlier I had summed up this event to be almost like the Ethnic Dance Festival held in San Francisco. Honestly...it was better. I was surprised to find that over 90 different countries were represented. In Minnesota?! I was trippin' because I had no idea how diverse it was out here. It was held in this huge auditorium in downtown St. Paul. There was an area for performances that reminded me of the Civic Center auditorium in da city, an area for food booths, and an area for arts/crafts booths. It was almost like the Ethnic Dance Festival, Fiesta Islands, and Taste of San Francisco all rolled up into one event. Considering the number of ethnic groups, it made for a totally cool experience!

For a good part of the afternoon, a four-hour block to be exact, I helped sell food at the Filipino booth. The menu included: pancit, chicken adobo, rice, lumpia, carioca, and sago, otherwise known today as "bubble tea." Imagine that you can get all of those items under the combo plate for only $7. In da city, the price could've easily been jacked up. In any kind of food venue area, the people traffic varied from nil to boo-yow busy. I gotta tell you- all them puti people sure do love to get their lumpia and pancit on! Plus, there were lots of repeat customers coming back for more! Not that I'm complaining 'cuz it was definitely good business for our booth. During the morning and into the afternoon, the festival is open only to students. Basically, all these schools take a field trip out to St. Paul and get to wander about their business for the day. As far as teh other food booths were concerned, there were foods I've never seen or heard of and though I didn't take advantage of any taste testing, seeing everyone done up in their native costumes (which was a requirement in order to be a vendor) made for the best people-watching activity.

Our dance performances went well. The days were divided into an adult program on Friday and a children's program on Saturday. In terms of uniformity and spacing, the adult program went surprisingly well. Hubby had bought a camcorder the day prior and he was there to capture it all on tape. Considering that this was only my second time performing with CSFA, I was excited. The kids had a dope show as well. I was one of the clappers for Tinikling, but 'twas cool that we were last in the program and honestly, Tinikling was the perfect choice to end the evening. The roar of the applause at the end was more to give any of these knuckle-headed kids a big head about their performance.

Just a tiny gripe about the whole performance....ya'll knew that it was coming, right? On Friday, the only thing that I had to complain about was the fact that I had serve right up until I had to perform. Not a big deal, although, my legs were aching the following day. Saturday was a different story. Like I said, the kids were to perform Tinikling. Most of the adults, myself included, were clapping. Before getting to the auditorium, I had proceeded to get ready- hair up in a bun, foundation and other stage makeup, jewelry off- basic stuff, yes? Well, imagine my surprise when I ended up being the only female clapper to be "formally dressed!" They told me that "we're only the clappers- we're background and we're not supposed to stand out in any way." I should've known after I was told last practice that the clappers' costumes would consist of black pants and white tops. Any black pants and white tops. Funny, I thought this was a Barrio dance and that participants would be dressed in the proper attire. Plus, some clappers went out in shoes. Not sapatilla shoes- I'm talking tennis shoes and sandals. Hello?! Ya'll are supposed to be barefoot- we're out in the barrio people! Now I'm sorry, to me, this was very unacceptable. I've always been taught that in Tinikling, the most important people ARE the clappers. Without good clappers, the dancers wouldn't be able to maneuver themselves correctly. It's been ingrained in my head that they are the ones to keep the dance going. Then, to NOT be dressed, no stage makeup, no buns done up, and people wearing shoes?! Nah uh. I was disappointed with that whole aspect of it, but I had to do what I've been doing for the past 8 months- that is, swallow my pride. I have to keep telling myself that they do things differently out here and that this group's goal is NOT to be the professional type of dance troupe like Likha or Larawan. But to me, if you're going to be representing the Filipino community in front of 90 other countries (and even being televised on certain cable stations), you'd THINK that they would like to look as authentic as possible.

Moving on...

- Sunday church service. After accepting Christ and choosing to follow the ways of the Christian church, I was baptized last Sunday. This baptism is a bit different from the Catholic baptism. One of the major differences is that in the Catholic church, most babies are sprinkled with holy water on their forehead by the priest. The babies are then annointed with oil. Sunday's ceremony was one of those full body immersion into the water deals. I had the opportunity to give a short testimony to the whole congregation and as luck would have it, I started blubbering and struggling to get any articulate words out. It was a very personal moment and made it even more blessed is that hubby was there to baptize or "dunk" me in.

For as long as I can remember, I've attended quite a few baptismal ceremonies. There'd be times when multiple ones would be going on at the same time with babies crying left and right. Plus, don't forget the record number of godparents, too! It is custom in the Catholic church to have a baby baptized soon after he or she has been born. This is to introduce and welcome the child into the Catholic church, and for the most part, to have the baby blessed and protected. I've come to learn that the baptism ceremony is very symbolic. The whole act represents Christ's death (going into the water), His burial (being immersed into the water), and His resurrection (coming out of the water). As symbolic as it is, it's just as moving and overwhelming.

In some ways, I was very sad that my family wasn't there to witness my baptism. I think in a lot of ways, I've become a bit homesick for CA lately. But at the same time, I know my decision to become born again has been the best and most important decision I could ever make for myself. I've come to realize that people just can't fit into any religion, no matter how long you've been around it. It really is a personal decision. I have the utmost appreciation for having the Catholic foundation instilled in me, and though there are many differences between the doctrines and beliefs, it still comes down to God. God is the only constant there is, for me at least, and I'm not one to judge someone for their beliefs or lack thereof in God.

Needless to say, it's been quite a weekend. Talk about going nonstop from Friday to Sunday. This week will be just as busy. With Mother's Day coming up, the kids at church will be performing a special number of Pandanggo Sa Ilaw/Oasioas. That means, I have to punch out a few more costumes for this barrio dance....'cuz honestly, black pants and white tops for this just ain't gonna do it for me.