Tag: festival

Winneba’s Fancy Dress Festival Rings in New Year

January 2, 2018

On January 1 every year, Winneba hosts the Fancy Dress Festival. (In British English, costumes are commonly referred to as “Fancy Dress.”) A tradition that in a mix of Carnival and local flavor, the festival is a really fun way to kick off the new year.

In Winneba, there are different groups that compete against each other with different dance routines. At the festival, you’ll see hundreds of people dressed in masks and homemade costumes that have spent weeks working on their routines. It can be a long, exhausting day, but it’s a lot of fun to see the dancers, their costumes and the joy of the crowd.

Check out the pictures from this year’s festival!

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A mural of a woman with blue hands held in front of her face under the words "Wata Mata"

Chale Wote: Accra’s Street Art Extravaganza

September 8, 2017

High Street is filled with rivers of people, shoulder to shoulder, flowing in competing directions. From Usher Fort at one end to the Jamestown Lighthouse at the other, the road has been blocked off and foot traffic has taken over, supplemented by street performers, muralists, artists, vendors and the ubiquitous women and children selling water from atop their heads. It’s Chale Wote, Accra’s annual street art festival breaking down the conceptions of West African art.

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A Glimpse at the Thimphu Teschu

May 9, 2017

When visiting a new culture, there is nothing that I love more than experiencing, attending or participating in a local festival. Just this past weekend was my town’s annual Aboakyer Festival, and once again it was a delight to join in the festivities. So when I was planning my trip to Bhutan, I knew I wanted to time it to coincide with a festival there, and as the calendar would have it, I was able to attend one of the biggest festivals, the Thimphu Tshechu.

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a young man in a marching band playing the trumpet and looking at the camera

Winneba’s Brass Band Festival

September 20, 2016

Music is seemingly everywhere in Ghana. It’s rare to have a truly quiet moment outside of normal sleeping hours, and even normal sleeping hours don’t always stop the tunes from wafting through the neighborhood. There is a proud history and tradition of music in Ghana, particularly the homegrown genre of highlife, which is a fusion of 1950s jazz, swing and brass bands and traditional Ghanaian drumming, beats and guitar styles. But highlife wouldn’t exist without the influence of brass bands.

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a man wearing traditional clothing and holding large feathers

Celebrating Afahye in Cape Coast

September 13, 2016

It was dark and the evening was in full swing. Traffic was simply not moving anywhere, forwards or backwards, and there were competing sound systems every 10 meters or so. People crowded throughout the streets, hands grasping sausages on sticks or bottles of beer, shouting to friends, jockeying to get a good position to watch some dancers or dancing themselves. Not only was it Friday, it was the night before the climax of the Afahye (uh-fah-SHAY) Festival in Cape Coast

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vejigantes, costumed and masked adolescent boys at carnival in ponce puerto rico

Celebrating Carnaval in Ponce, Puerto Rico

February 26, 2016

Carnival. That party that happens before Lent every year, with places like Rio de Janeiro or maybe Venice coming to mind. Images of lithe, bronzed women in sparkly costumes and huge feathered headdresses or intricate masks and elaborate gowns and suits.

But the truth is that Carnival is celebrated across the Caribbean, and in a number of places around the world. While New Orleans’s Mardi Gras is perhaps the most widely known version in the United States, Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city, is also known for its Carnaval, known as Carnaval Ponceño.

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See What I Saw: A Photographic Chronicle of 27 Months

March 20, 2015

Today is officially my last day as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Even if I could sum up that last two years in words, it would likely be a novel, or at least a novella. Can you put the last two years of your life in a blog post? Didn’t think so. So, harkening back to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a gallery of picture highlights from the last 27 months. (Click on any picture to enlarge.)

(Apologies to my readers who are in locations with limited data and Internet connectivity. I suggest skipping this post and coming back to it when you have decent Internet.)

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6 Things I Didn’t Get to Do in Thailand

March 10, 2015

Two years is a long time. It’s also not enough time. When you are staring down the barrel of a two-year commitment, it’s daunting and difficult to imagine. On the back end, you start wishing for more time and thinking of all the things you didn’t get to do. So I present to you, a list of six things that I didn’t get a chance to do in Thailand, that I hope I will have the chance to return to do.

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