Brazos Valley Worldfest 2010

Another great experience we had with Danny's family was when his brother Nick got to come for a weekend to visit back in November.  We joined Elena's family and spent that saturday going to the Brazos Valley Worldfest, sponsered by the city and by Texas A&M University's Department of Education and many of the international clubs on campus.  (...funny how we keep going to all these events I've never heard of sponsered by A&M only after I've graduated and left the school...)  The worldfest has lots of exhibits on dozens of countries displaying customs, traditions, handicrafts, food, photos, and more, as well as many live performances of cultural dances and music.

Uncle Nick with Dash riding his shoulders

They had two camels at their "bedouin camp" near the middle eastern country displays.  The boys were a little nervous at first, but did like seeing them up close.

Danny took Race on his shoulders... just to be fair, of course.

At this one display, they had several tongue twisters in each of the languages spoken in the country (though of course, I can't recall what country that was).  One of them was in french, and I actually was able to read out loud the entire thing!  I was pretty impressed, if I do say so myself (it's only been, what, seven years since I took french?), and I think the guys in the both were too, until after a pause, the guy that spoke french said, "okay, now faster!" haha, oh well. I tried.

... they had a small animal/bug display... the boys seemed to enjoy it, but I didn't go in after realizing one of the bugs they had was a hissing cockroach... *shudders*.

... waiting for the performances in the ampitheater to start.

We caught the tail end of the dancers from India (??) ... I think... some Asian country (yeah, I know, really specific...) very unique costumes as they used small red bows and arrows as props in there dance?

The next show we had come to see was these Japanese drummers (I know there's a fancy name for it, but can't remember it).  They were intense, playing some traditional songs and some songs they created with a more modern beat to them.  They were all very enthusiastic and you could tell just by watching how much they enjoyed this form of music.

some of the drums involved some really skilled and practically athletic drummers, like these one in the front, where the players basically had to hold a sit-up position for the entire song!  ugh.  just thinking about it makes me hurt.  But they were incredible nonetheless.

Last, we saw a group of traditional dancers from ... Ukraine?  possibly another northern European, but somewhere in that part of the world.  They had some really fun dances, and the men were simply incredible!  They did all these really high kicks while squatting (like Russian dancers), jumps and flips that were practically acrobatic instead of dancing, and lots of spinning with the girls, even once holding the girls by the waist as they spun and had their feet flying in the air.

and best of all, they all looked like they were having so much fun.

... the costumes were so pretty! It makes me wish that USA had more of a heritage with bright costumes and traditional dances and such.  (I suppose country western is almost it's own, lol)  But I guess that's the whole point, that we come from all these backgrounds, so we get to experience all of them instead of just one.  I really enjoyed coming, and my only regret is that I just now found out about this event.  :)