International Food and Fun Fair!

Here is my sweet little Craig! He is just finishing up his first year of school here in Penang! I just realized that Craig actually never got to go to Kindergarten! Here at St. Christopher's there isn't a Kindergarten year, it goes from a year called reception (preschool to us Americans) to Year 1. We have just loved Craig's school and feel very lucky to have him attend! I've loved it so much I just became the new PTC (PTA to us Americans!) President. I started in Late April, and here is our first event at the school! We held an International Food and Fun Fair! We hung our international flags, and had a great afternoon!

We were very lucky to have great weather, for many years the fair has had rain. The good weather really drew in the crowds, and we were prepared for them!

The fair, as it name indicates is a two-fold fair. Food and Fun. Let's start with Food! We had 15 different countries lining the walkways of the school. Each country was represented by parents of children attending school. They prepared dishes from their home countries to sell at the fair! We all got to stop by the booths and sample food from around the world! Here is the American booth - we sold chili, cornbread and irresistible brownies!

Here is our host country's booth, Malaysia! They had so many choices!Our lovely Korean mums wore traditional Korean clothing at their booth!Here was a popular booth! Belgium and the Netherlands teamed up to make waffles, pommes frites and also had some cheese native to their countries!Here is England! They sold strawberries and cream, fairy cakes and cucumber sandwiches!

Australia brought in a barbeque and sizzled wonderful sausages and grilled onions!Germany and Switzerland teamed up to make meatloaf, potato salad and wonderful cakes!

Here are our Singapore and Thailand Representatives!Japan was a very popular booth!Here are our wonderful ladies representing Taiwan! They made great dumplings on site!

We even had a fresh coconut water stand! Here is a man cutting the top of a coconut. These are from right here in Malaysia, and they make a very refreshing drink!

In addition to all the booths shown we had booths from Denmark, the Phillipines, and Sri Lanka. Now what was Craig doing during the fair? He was more interested in the fun aspect of the Food and Fun Fair! Here he is running with his buddies on the field. See that bouncy house behind them? A lot of vouchers were spent bouncing away in there!

There were lots of choices for activities, though. Here is the tattoo (temporary, of course!) parlor.

Here is the Nail Salon! Lots of little ladies got pampered in here!The always popular face painting parlor!Fishing for ducks was a lot of fun! The kids fished for the ducks with chopsticks!The donut eating competition drew in some crowds!

We also had some field games, like this three-legged race!Just so there was lots of fun to be had, we also had a can pyramid crash, football goal games, egg and spoon races, fishing for eyeballs, M&M and straw race, a fashion parade with clothing made in 30 minutes from toilet paper, tape and garbage bags, and probably the most popular: WET THE TEACHER! Everyone loved to see their teachers get wet sponges thrown at them! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of that one! We were very excited for the fair, and really wanted to let the children take pride in their home country and bring our international community together. We sponsored an Art Competition, and children were able to submit pieces of art with their home country as the theme. Were were thrilled with the hundreds of entries submitted! We displayed all the art in the hall so that everyone could see our wonderful International Art Exhibit!

There were three winners per year group. And look who won for year 1!! I must state for the record that I have no idea who judged the competition, and I was told that they didn't know me, or that I was the PTC president. He was so excited to get his 10 ringitt voucher to the book store! (that's the equivalent of $3.30!)

Let's take a closer look at my brilliant boy's masterpiece! He had a rocket, an American Flag, a cowboy and a paper mache rattlesnake. This is what represents America to him.

As well as highlighting the visual arts, we wanted to involve the performing arts as well. Here is the fantastic SCIPS choir entertaining us in the hall!

And here is our darling dance team dancing on the field. They learned 3 traditional English dances - and they did a great job!

Even the parents got involved in the last dance! Everyone had a great time!This was a great day! It was our first event to put on as the new PTC, and I was so happy with how well we worked together! Here is our team. We have 3 ladies from Australia, 2 ladies from Sweden, myself (American!) and a Phillipino-American in the group.