Smithsonian Folklife Festival: The whole story

Mele is weaving and I am practicing weaving in our booth

After two weeks presenting at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival following months of preparation and heaps of planning, I am back in Tonga and reeling from the exhausting, inspiring experience.

In short, the best part about it was epitomized by a trip to see the White House (from the gate, of course) with several other presenters. In a group of seven people, we collectively spoke five languages: English, French, Spanish, Tongan, and Bambara (from Mali). The diversity, accomplishments, and interesting experiences of other presenters at the festival were what inspired and delighted us throughout.



The best way to capture the insane amount of things we experienced is through photos. I uploaded three main banks of photos to my Facebook page that I have made publicly available, with captions, that when viewed and read in sequence, give a pretty good picture of Mele's and my whirlwind festival trip.

Huge trip highlight: getting shown the
Natural History Museum Tongan archives by
Adrienne Kaeppler and Josh Bell

View them in order by clicking these links:
Smithsonian: Fiji and Days 1-3
Smithsonian: July 4-9
Smithsonian: July 10-12 The End


Also check out what Smithsonian and Peace Corps wrote about us on these links:

• Smithsonian article on the Tongan weaving exhibit
• Peace Corps feature on us (check out the other presenters' profiles, they are amazing)
• Peace Corps photo summary on the exhibits, including Tonga
• Peace Corps event summary on the extra demonstration we did at the Textile Museum
• Smithsonian "Peace Corps Kids" feature on Tonga
• Peace Corps pictures of our booth
• Smithsonian Tongan recipe: Lu Moa