South Of the Border, East of the Border

Yesterday was a multicultural day for me. It began at my community education class where I learned how to make a Kissing Ball. A kissing ball is a round piece of florist foam hung on a ribbon into which I inserted many pieces of Douglas fir to make a roundish shape. I added some pine cones, some Christmas balls, and a festive ribbon in top. Voila - a kissing ball that hangs outside and should stay green until spring. At the nursery where I took this class is a wreath making factory. There were about 25 Hispanic people making wreaths and door ornaments. At the other end of the nursery were a group of Asian people making holiday garland. This was fascinating because it looked at first like these women were spinning wool. They sat in front of large spinning wheels. I saw 5 spinning wheel stations. Twine was fed into the back of the wheel and the women fed branches of evergreens into the hole in the wheel, pushed it forward and then pulled it back. They could make a 25 length of garland in about 5 minutes. In the evening I went to a award banquet for Offspring #2 at the First Christian Church in Minneapolis. She got an award for her community service. There we were entertained by youth ethnic dancers. First were the Mexican dancers. Three 5 year olds danced together. Two girls and a boy in full costume danced round and round. Four teenagers followed them and the dancing was marvelous. The dresses swayed back and forth and the boys looked so handsome. At one point the boys were dancing with 20 inch machetes - clicking the blades together in front of them, behind them, under the legs, etc. A guy has to be careful dancing with those. Then a group named Chatterbox danced. These were Hmong youth doing breakdancing. I saw amazing feats of calestenics and gravity defying upsidedownedness. There was a group of 10 or so people dancing but they took turns and danced singularly or in pairs. I enjoyed watching their faces as they watched their buddies dance. I could tell when a difficult move was made by the appreciation shown on their faces. We were served a wonderful dinner. I had vegetarian fried rice, a vegetarian egg roll, a vegetarian hot tamale, fruit and a fortune cookie. The food was delicious. I have never had a tamale like this before. It was wrapped in what looked like corn husks. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to eat the husk or unroll it. I watched other people unroll it. I took my plastic knife and tried to cut the tamale but I couldn't so I decided to unroll mine too. Inside was a mashed potato packet. It was tasty and warm but the futher I ate, the hotter it got. Inside the center was a jalapeno. Wowee, Momma, that was good. My eyes were watering, my mouth was burning and my nose was running. Any good meal involves a little pain.