World Fest

Almost every year since we moved here we've participated in WorldFest, a three-day Labor Day weekend international festival (complete with a citizenship naturalization ceremony and parade of nations) up on the Belvedere, the park that overlooks the Ohio River and hangs over Interstate 64. It's also the site for Abbey Road on the River (but it's free), on Memorial Day weekend - profile in a blog entry. This year Vincent went elsewhere and it didn't turned out perfectly. It started to rain and so we headed to Tumbleweed on the river (and so we missed getting to eat dinner there). And Stephanie, our friend Sarah, Stephanie's former colleague Jim, and I were all tired, and Sarah and Jim didn't really hit it off. We did get to hear some music, sample some desserts, window shop, and run into some other friends. Many of the countries had booths, and a country we visited last summer (Guatemala) had a booth that featured the kind of sand painting we had seen in Antigua.

We caught a local teen drumming act.

I ran into someone we also run into at WorldFest: Stephanie's former colleague Annabelle, with her fiance. Yes - Annabelle is getting married next year, but not before graduating from Indiana University Southeast with a degree in Spanish. She'll go on to the University of Louisville for a master's degree in education. Annabelle - a product of Floyd County schools - was a teenager when she worked as an aide/translator with Stephanie. Stephanie doesn't really have an aide now, as Annabelle's replacement - Lourdes, a former teacher who's good with students and also with parents and has her own office now. Ironically, the aide/translator who works more with Stephanie's colleague, the school's other English as a New Language teacher, the first Anglo translator/aide they've had, is also named Annabelle (and she's fun too).

Jim taught with Stephanie (and worked with Annabelle) in the school in which the district's ENL program was originally located. Jim teaches 4th grade at the school, and Stephanie runs into him at district events and we occasionally do things with him. He's got local Southern IN roots and is also fun.

The rain put the schedule behind and we caught (an apparently local) salsa band, whose music inspired lots of folks there to dance (some quite well, from what we could tell).

We called it a night at about 9:30 a.m. (partly Sarah had to write a sermon the next day and we had to leave early and be at church at 9 a.m., in order to take kids for a youth group event at Deam Lake.

-- Perry