International Folk Festival

International Folk Festival
September 26th and 27th, Fayetteville, North Carolina

This is a two day event in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I was so glad I found parking right away, but I'm a pretty lucky person when it comes to parking. I couldn't see the festival from the main roads.  But I followed the sound of old Irish tunes, the Native American frocks, and the smell of deliciousness and I knew I was there. I believe the saying is, "Follow your nose." Tizi, my son, was happy to go to a festival so close to home. We still arrived at around 1:00pm. We are just not early risers on the weekend. We need to get better at that. So we arrived to the Irish music a-playin' and there were people a-stompin' and a-clappin' on the corner and so did Tizi. He loves that music, he may be Mexican-American but by-gholly, he's also Irish-American. Well we listened a little while and then got moving. 


Then we passed a sidewalk full of people just like us, smelling the delicious food. The first booth we saw had Mexican food, then Puerto Rican, Carribean, Italian, Greek, Costa Rican (icees), Tai, Chinese, and Japanese. Whatever kind of food your mouth was watering for, it was there. We settled for baklava and pizza. We past several shops with crafts and jewelry and blown glass from different areas around the world. We crossed over a bridge into a large grassy area. There was a stage to the left that had Greek children dancing. Then there was Tai dancing and sparring, then Hawiian, then Aztec. (Their outfits were really cool.) The stage to the right had a Puerto Rican band. There was more food all around from hotdogs to hamburgers and Domino's Pizza to, well I don't really know what kind of food that other stuff was, but it sure smelled good. Domino's gave away some free beach balls to all the children. 


The beach balls were the highlight of the event for me. I mean culture is cool and all, but fun is most important. My son started running around all over the place with a whole bunch of children. Children are so magical, no shyness at all. It was a cloudy day. It had rained earlier in the morning so the grass was wet and had mud under it. So the children ran and ran and fell and got mud all over themselves. Just made me remember how fun it used to be to be a kid running around in the rain without a care in the world. Then these teenagers came into the circle where the little ones were playing. Some teenage B-boys started to break dancing. They were doing the coolest moves and handstands. This was totally unrelated to the Internation Folk Festival, just kids having fun, but wow. That was the best part. So then we left.


I will go again next year since it is so close to home. It's mostly an event for the food. Really not a lot of kids activities unless you consider socializing an activity. It's definately a cultural event. But I think it may be a cool date idea for next year.