Bradey and some of his classmates
Mason and his class friends
Festival Caterers...hmmmmm????
Monday, May 30, 2011
Festa Di Cultura
The Aviano Cultural Festival was this past weekend. All the area schools--elementary to highschool--participated with various types of performances. The teacher's and parents had told us how important this festival is to their school calendar...that it was "beautiful!" Each of the boys' classes would be doing a cultural dance. Prior to going, I grilled the boys on the need for good manners, and respect for the event and what it meant to their Italian friends and teachers...you know, no giggling when things seems different or funny to them. Perhaps I should have made that same little "mommy speech" to Tim and I. The Festival was truly the oddest thing we have attended since our arrival. We did not find it beautiful or amazing...but truly chaotic and bizzare! Tim and I had all we could do not to laugh out loud. Okay, so we actually did a few times. We couldn't help it. Tim said we should have taped the whole thing so that we could share it on this blog, but alas I only got fragments of it. What made it so odd? Well...it could have been the Italian theatrical rendition of Peter Pan turned into a musical by the addition of the Grease soundtrack...or all the handmade pinwheels that we were supposed to wave following each class' performance,...or the "American Hokey-Pokey" that wasn't American at all, but the crazy Italian version of this American favorite,...or was it the black-tie caterers handing out hor dourves amoung the crowd as if we were at an extravagant dinner party?...Maybe it was the organized tug-of-war competition that was smack dab in the middle of all these "artistic expressions".... could have been just watching my children sing and dance in a foreign language...whatever it was, it was fun to experience and surely brought a smile to our confused American faces.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
So funny! The boys definitely did well for only having a couple of weeks to learn these "dances"! What a riot! Hooray for culture! :)
ReplyDeleteLOL Sarah!!! I miss you!!!
ReplyDeleteWe definitly would have been laughing hysterically if we were there! It was "interesting" to watch the boys dance?!
ReplyDeleteI hope the boys had fun though!
What fun to do something with the kids from their school. Pretty soon you will get to know some of the other moms, and you'll be speaking Italian fluently. I am really proud of you, Sarah, for getting involved so quickly. I know you all will benefit from this experience. I know exactly what you mean when you said that you feel disconnected from the U.S. I felt the same way while living in Japan. It wasn't all bad though. We lived there during an election year and we didn't have to watch all the garbage throwing on tv that the candidates do. You will get to miss it all next year. The girls started violin last night. The teacher is the violin coach for the YSO. She is really a good teacher, and the girls really enjoyed their first lesson. She is teaching them together for an hour until she feels she needs to separate them. We have one more week of school, and then summer vacation. The girls still have to do math, but we have spare time during the day during summer anyway. Corbin will continue with spanish for the summer. I love all the pictures, Sarah. It helps me not miss you as much. Keep them coming. You don't have to post this message since much of it is a personal message for you. I wish we could experience Italy with you all.
ReplyDeleteLove ya lots, Elaine (I remember the lonliness feeling that you have. It will only last a while, and then at the end of 4 years you won't want to leave Italy.)