Today’s guest entry comes from an incoming fifth grader, Sadie. She had an awesome global experience… without going too far from home! If you are a part of the Innovation Academy community and want to write a guest blog entry like Sadie, it’s easy — click here for more information. 

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Photo courtesy of Sadie C-P.

Hello IACS! In June my family and I went to an African Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts. We had so much fun and learned some fun and interesting facts about the African culture. One of the many things we did there was eat many different African cultural foods. The main stand that we got many samples from had West African types of food. One lady who worked at this West African stand was a very good business lady and was the reason we decided to eat the food here.

There were many different types of food to choose from, but we chose 5 of the suggestions the kind woman gave us. These foods were rice bread, a special type of ribs, roasted corn, coconut candy, and even chicken gizzards! (Chicken gizzards are chicken intestines.) I, in particular, did not enjoy the intestines very much, but on the other hand, both of my sisters LOVED them!

While the many people were eating the many different kinds of African foods there were also performers dancing and playing to African jams. The music they were playing kind of made you want to stand up and dance. The beat and the rhythm was sort of upbeat, jazzy, and rockin’ rollin’. The people who were playing the music were very kind and said if anyone wanted to, they could come up on stage and dance and sing with them.

Photo from http://www.africanfestivallowell.org/

This music and food at the African Festival was very fun and a very good experience for me and anyone else that hasn’t had an experience like this before. I hope I will be able to have this much of a powerful experience with another culture. This African Festival was very fun and a good learning experience. I hope to do it another time in the future.

~ Sadie C-P.