GAA Beloved International Food Festival Returns

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Mariam Abukar, Staff Writer

GAA’s first food festival since the pandemic finally arrived on the afternoon of February 28th. A festival that takes place annually, meant to celebrate the diversity of the students by sharing one of the most beautiful aspects of culture: food. Along with food, we have had amazing traditional performances on stage and countless representatives of countries sharing abundance of food and drinks on the grassy field that really brought a lively and nostalgic atmosphere.

As we all know, we have missed the food festival dearly ever since the pandemic as online learning diminished the amount of time we spend together as a community. Thank you to every student and parent that represented their country at the food festival.

Zara , a junior, was asked what her favorite part of the festival was as well as suggestions she could make to make the food festival more memorable and how having an annual festival benefits the GAA community and she had this to say, “I really loved the parade part of the festival. I felt like everyone was really involved and each country got to share a bit of their culture. [The food festival] benefits the GAA community because it makes everyone aware of the fact that GAA is so multicultural and diverse. It makes the school year more fun because friends can get all together and try different things together.”

Abdelrahman, a senior, said that his favorite part of the festival was “Seeing all the different cultures and trying new foods”,  and a suggestion he had for next year’s food festival is “Maybe add events/games to go with the foods so that it gives people something to do, also add more seating areas for people to sit at, and provide water” and having an annual food festival benefits the GAA community because “it creates a sense of community and involves families to work together while also exposing people to each other’s cultures”.

We have also asked those who participated in the GAA Food Festival that were outside of the GAA community. Alex had this to say about the food festival, “I liked it because most of the food was homemade and I felt like I really got a taste of what people from those countries eat – made me realize that going to restaurants doesn’t always give you a full picture, even though maybe that’s what you hope for.