It’s Whatever: International Festival GWA Academy {Morocco}

While in Morocco the kids attended the GWA American Academy. The cultural experience there was wonderful for them. They were surrounded by so many different nationalities, languages, and religions. To celebrate the schools diversity, they held an annual International Festival, where the the students from different countries got to represent and highlight the their backgrounds through this celebration. There was music, entertainment, food, and games… the cool part was the families participation in the whole thing. Each family that wished to represent their country set up a booth where they sold food that was native to where they were from. They also got to perform a cultural dance. My wheels were turning when asked to participate. I immediately thought of my friend Minerva, a beautiful and talented retired professional dancer. She had shared with me that she had a background in Ballet Folkorico, having been born in Monterrey, Mexico… and I had danced as kid. So, we decided we'd do an old classic, El Jarabe Tapatio. The brilliant part about it, is that the number is performed with a male partner. Well, we just happened to each have 13 year old sons who could be our partners. After much bribery and convincing, they accepted the challenge. The problem was, where would we find the dresses? shoes? pants for the boys, sombreros (also a big part of the dance)??? With no time to waste, we hit up the fabric souks for fabric and a seamstress, we also visited the Mexican convent where most of the expats bought fresh chips and tortillas, and asked if we could borrow any Mexican folklorish stuff they had. They happened to have zarabes, sombreros, and a few other things we decorated the booth with. Everything came together literally the night before and the dresses were fabulous. I was seriously worried as all we had was a picture to show the Moroccan seamstress. We finally polished the dance in a weeks time and then the morning of, I cooked 9 kilos of ground beef for tacos, 3 gallons of fresh salsa, and about 40 avocados for guacamole. Our booth was a huge hit, to my surprise, and we sold out of food in less than the first two hours. It was an awesome day, but the best part of all was getting to share this memory with my son, and hopefully instilling in him a love and appreciation for his Mexican heritage.