La Feria EARTH Multicultural!

FEM is what they call it here, for short.

Spanish lesson for today: Feria = Fair. Multicultural = multicultural.

Thus, the event was the EARTH Multicultural Fair!

31 countries (and flags) were on display at the 2013 EARTH Multicultural Fair

THE FLAGS ARE UP! Ever since I arrived 5 weeks ago, I have been wanting to see the flags up on their flagpoles. There are about 35 flagpoles in the front of the library and they do not hold flags all year round - just for special events, like LA FERIA!

My neighbors working on decorations for their country stands

Tent set-up started 2 weeks ago, the craziness hit in the last 10 days. Students have been painting, preparing, meeting, organizing, and working really hard for this STUDENT-RUN event. The 4th years are the main leaders of the event, especially considering the majority of the funds raised are used to pay for PLANE TICKETS so that the 4th year students' parents can come to their graduation (considering they are coming from all over the world - hence multicultural fair). There are 8-9 committees that almost the whole student body disperses itself among. I was a member of the committee called "Manejo Integrado de Residuos" - integrated waste management. There were 30-some recycling stations placed around the fair and we were assigned to one for a few hours at a time to make sure the public is properly sorting their "deshechos."

Me by my assigned "classificador" - EARTH has a pretty good recycling program

The Brazilian meat was pretty popular...

So other than the different committees, students are busy working on their individual stands - decorating and preparing their signature dish to sell at the Feria. There were 15 stands representing the different world regions of the student body. Most all Central/South American countries had their own stand, and all of Africa shared one stand... but their food was pretty good. Actually, all of the food was awesome, especially considering it was made by a bunch of college students. I had 4 meals - Chifrijo (from Costa Rica), Falafel and hummus (Lebanon - there is 1 student from Lebanon and EARTH's president is Lebanese), Chicken/coconut rice (Africa), and Shucho (a hot dog type sandwhich with guac and lots of other goodies) from Guatemala. YUM. Seriously. The food makes this event happen... like I am getting hungry right now thinking about it.

My friends from Belize and the Dominican Republic, manning the grills!

Rice cooked in coconut milk and other salads... yum.

While there are absolutely no full-time students from the United States of America at EARTH, we still managed to have a stand. How you may ask? Well there are 8 or 9 women who work for the university from the States, one being a very dedicated woman named Hannah, who organized our SUPERB stand and food selection. Wondering what it is? No, we didn't make cheeseburgers, but people were asking for them...

PIES and BROWNIES (home made). I got to help make the brownies in the university kitchen. We may not have had all the exact ingredients that you could find at any given Weis in the States, but we made it work... for a grand total of 28 batches of brownies! Man did they fly. The other women helped make the pies, and they were pretty popular - apple, mango meringue, key lime, and lemon meringue. We sold out by the end of the day Sunday (and didn't even sell anything Saturday). It was a success. There are some other United States students here for short periods, but I am longest-term gringo here for the summer.

The water drop dude waiting for local students to get their "I am a water guardian" gear on. The theme of the Feria 2013 was"Water for Life" so the national agency for clean water was definitely in their prime!

Other things happening at the Feria - bike race and running competition, local and national vendors with crafts, educational booths from EARTH, a mini-farm, and national DANCES! While I didn't see nearly as many as I would have liked, I still got to see some Nigerian friends move around to a hip-hop/jazz type music in addition to some groups that came in to represent other countries/groups.

I am not sure what group these women represented, but I loved their outfits :) 

So there it is, La Feria EARTH Multicultural 2013. Mind you, I have 300 more photos and lots more stories to tell, but this blog is just a quick summary. While the craziness of the event doesn't quite compare to a home football weekend in State College, the university population multiplied by at least 10 this weekend. The majority of the masses came Sunday and I think there was over 10,000 total attendees, but I still don't have the final count! TBA... stay tuned! 

I hope you enjoyed my account of FEM 2013!! Be sure to come next year ;)