International Festival of Raleigh

We went to check out the International Festival at the Convention Center in downtown Raleigh a few weeks ago. Every year this is held at the end of September, just before all of the other Fall craziness starts. I'm sorry that I'm only just writing about it now! The time has definitely gotten away from me, but it's a resource any Raleigh area homeschooler should know about. There is so much to see and do there and it's all relatively cheep.

If you like to study different countries and cultures, this is a great event to take your kids to. I took my kids a couple of years ago and we really enjoyed ourselves, so I made it a point to put it on our calendar this year. 

Now, if it were just me, I would sit and watch the dancers and performers for hours on end. I was out-voted on this, but the talent and diversity is amazing. For three days, there is a constant stream of performers from cultures all around the world on three different stages . Many of them are local teens and adults who do cultural dancing for fun. Yes indeed, Raleigh is becoming an ever more diverse place to be.

You can do your own dancing as well! My kids spent a great deal of time trying to learn a Baliwood dance (something I found very amusing to watch!) and then when the Irish dancers arrived, they tried out some Irish dancing as well. I think dancing was my daughter's favorite thing at the Festival, especially since I refused to by her any new clothing or trinkets.

In addition to the live entertainment, there are two kinds of display booths set up. The first are commercial booths selling goods from all over the world. These are great to peruse if you are looking for a Russian matryoshka doll or and Indian sari. With the holidays coming up, you could probably find some good hard-to-find type gifts. 

The second type of booth is set up by various cultural groups to explain something about their country in particular. To me this was a bit like our yearly Geography Fair displays, except the cultural groups get a whole booth instead of just a table to work with. If you so desire, you can get a "Passport" at the begining and go around to the various booths collecting stamps for a prize. Unfortunately, my kids declined to do this, so I don't know what the prize was, but it's a great way to get them to investigate the different country booths and talk to some of the people. Some of the booths were more interesting than others and I'm guessing most of it was done by volunteers. We did see some interesting stuff. For example, we got to watch this gentleman from China working at the art of calligraphy.

There is a kids section where you can paint, try on masks, hear stories told from around the world and more. 

You can also go to the hoola-hoop area and hoola-hoop to you're heart's delight!

Along one wall is the food area, and an impressive line of multi-cultural foods were definitely represented.  You can sample foods from Thailand, China, Africa, Italy... you get the idea.

Bookmark the Festival page and check it out next year if you live in the area. It's a three day event and only $5-6 for kids and $6-8 for adults on any given day.