Holiday Greetings

December is the month for holidays that delight children around the world.  In the Jewish community Hanukkah is celebrated on the eve of the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kisler and lasts 8 days. Normally it falls in December but it can begin in November. The story of this holiday represents the Jews in Judea defeat of the Syrian tyrant Antiochus.  The Jewish people held festivities in the Temple of Jerusalem and rededicated it to God.  After removing all the Syrian idols from the Temple, the Jews found one small cruse of oil to light the holy lamps. It was declared a festival to be observed by Jews by the Jewish Leader, Judas Maccabaeus.  During the holiday a candle is lit on the menorah each evening and gifts are exchanged.

Generally Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. Some celebrate it on January 6.  Over time this holiday has grown to include pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes. The bringing of gifts to children is included in almost all celebrations.  Children everywhere wait for Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle to arrive with something special for them.  The celebrations also represent families coming together, special holiday foods, and acts of charity for the less fortunate in our communities.  Did you show kindness through your actions or give a gift to someone where you live during December?

Kwanzaa begins on December 26 and lasts until January 1.  This holiday was established in 1966 in the United States for Americans of African descent to celebrate their heritage. The word Kwanzaa is derived from Swahili and means "first fruits." Each day of the 7 days is dedicated to one of the principles of Kwanzaa.  A candle is lit each day and placed on a mat with husks of corn.  The house is decorated using the colors red, green, and black. Can you guess why these particular colors are used during this celebration?  There is a feast on the last day and gifts are given.

This December families with a child enrolled in the Pre-K2 class at Cape Fear Community College's Child Development Center have a special guest to share either their Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa celebration. Dr. Emily is a bear that arrived from Willow Primary School in Doncaster, England in October.  She is visiting with each Wilmington family in Ms. Nicole's class on her journey to the United States and her adventures are being recorded in a journal, which will be returned to the Pre-K class in England next spring.  I have heard that Dr. Emily has already traveled to a beach in another state - South Carolina during our celebration of Thanksgiving.  I wonder how far she will travel and how many experiences she will have during her stay in America.

The Sister Cities web site has a link for children to discover how Christmas is celebrated in Wilmington and its four sister cities - Bridgetown, Barbados, San Pedro, Belize, Dandong, China, and Doncaster, England.

Happy Holidays and Peace to All  

Smiles,
Marilyn
Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA) 

Wilmington Celebrates Independent Film

"Always Popping" is the Cucalorus Film Festival logo (www.cucalorus.org) and that was certainly true for the 17th annual festival of independent film.  The festival screens roughly 100 films, including feature films, narratives, documentaries and shorts from all over the world.  There were about 300 filmmakers at this year's festival and more than 10,000 artists and film fans attending screenings and events around town over four days.  Sister Cities hosted a lunch for several international filmmakers in town for the festival representing Canada, England, Germany, Italy and Spain following the Global Perspectives program for area high school students. Over lunch we talked about the use of media in the classroom and whether it can be a useful tool in a learning environment.  Mostly we all had a good time and enjoyed the art created by a diverse group of filmmakers where fiction and non-fiction intersected across a wide range of themes.

Wilmington is sometimes referred to as Hollywood East because of EUE/Screen Gems Film Studios which has been around in various forms since the 1980's.  Cinema tourism has grown over the past decade mostly because of popular television shows appealing to teens and young adults that have been filmed in Wilmington.  Iron Man 3 based on the well-known Marvel Comic characters will be filmed here next year.  In the photo above are festival goers attending a down home Southern style barbecue in Studio 3.

Wilmington is working on a short film of its sister cities in 2012 - watch for coming attractions since you might be in the movies!

We hope all the international filmmakers who trekked to Wilmington for the festival enjoyed their time here. Bravo Cucalorus.... for an awesome festival.

Smiles,
Marilyn
Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA)

All Saint's Fair in San Pedro

Last month I blogged about things we celebrate in October and today I read an article in the San Pedro Daily newspaper about the 6th annual All Saint's Fair organized by San Pedro R.C. Primary School and held on November 4.  The students dressed as saints and angels marched in a parade through San Pedro Town ending at the school site where many festivities were taking place.  Children and adults played games including tombola, fish pond, slaying Goliath and St. John's Bosco bowling.  I was not familiar with "tombola" and was curious about what kind of game this might be.  I learned that it is a form of bingo of Italian origin and a very popular family game played during the Christmas holidays. I imagine our sister schools in England and Poland know the game since it is popular in Europe.  I now have tombola on my Christmas shopping list so we can enjoy it at family gatherings.  We speak some Italian, French and Spanish in our family so it would be an interesting game to help us expand our language skills.  The Fair helps to raise money for the San Pedro R.C. Primary School's building fund and other needs.  This year it raised more than $8,000 to help with construction costs for a shade building at the school. Congratulations to Mrs. Kay, the teachers and students for a super day enjoyed by the entire community while benefiting the school!  The photograph above and to the right that displays the school logo painted on the exterior (upper level) of the building is one that I took while visiting this past spring. The colorful buildings and murals were truly a visual feast that dotted the landscape along San Pedro's beachfront. Both the library and municipal building boasted paintings by local artists.   You can learn more about this San Pedro tradition by going to www.ambergristoday.com and view additional photographs from the fair. I am doing my post today because the rest of the week is busy with the Cucalorus International Film Festival.  I will upload a few photographs of some of our visiting filmmakers from around the world in a future post.  I heard that the Child Development Center at Cape Fear Community College's pre-kindergarten class received its culture box from Doncaster this week.  I will encourage the class teachers to talk about their project on I Spy a Friend since this is the youngest exchange we have ever had in Wilmington.

Smiles,

Marilyn

Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA) 



Penguin Fans Enter Here

For those of you who are fans of Mumble from the 2006 animated film "Happy Feet," the sequel will be in US movie theaters later this month.  Can't wait for Happy Feet Two, which I understand is in 3-D - you can get a glimpse of the real thing by following Dr. Steve Emslie's penguin team.  Dr. Steve's main home is the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Department of Biology and Marine Biology - http://uncw.edu/penguins.  Dr. Steve and his team have been busy studying the ecology, past ecology and climate of the Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo penguin colonies, a project funded by the National Science Foundation.  Two of Wilmington's primary schools, Codington and Gregory were able to follow the team via the internet from their classrooms.  The curious-minded about this remote region can read the questions and answers from the participating schools online, or teachers can access the curriculum developed for grades 2-4 with complete lesson plans by clicking on the K-12 education tab.  The field research page also has a link to the blogs written while in Antarctica.  There are some external links to additional resources on penguins, one of which is the Kids Zone where I did the Penguin puzzle.  You are able to change the number of pieces to make the puzzle as challenging as you desire based on your skill level.  I must admit that I changed the number of pieces and it ended up taking me nearly 5 minutes to complete.  Of course, I could not resist a do-over. 

Another recent penguin media event was the airing of the Frozen Planet series on BBC broadcasting.  The series premier in the UK was October 26 on Wednesdays and Sundays and is the result of a collaborative venture involving the Discovery Channel, BBC and the Open University.  The film crew did an amazing job in capturing the penguin colonies and the ecosystem of this remote region where visitors rarely get to go. Frozen Planet will air in the US in early 2012.  Since the Discovery Channel is available in 210 countries and 44 languages many households who subscribe will be able to view this incredible nature story in their homes. To make it accessible to everyone, Sister Cities will donate the DVD of Frozen Planet for use in the classroom to any teachers participating in a current school partnership that submit a joint project to be shared on our website involving climate change or sustainability in the 2011-12 school year.  

Smiles,

Marilyn

Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA) 

Some Halloween Trivia

It is widely believed that Halloween evolved from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.  The name "Halloween" originated in Scotland in the 1500s and is a variant of the All-Hallows-Even ("evening").  The name referred to the night before All Hallows Day or All Saints Day as designated by the 8th century Pope Gregory III to honor all saints and martyrs.  The carving of jack-o-lanterns an iconic part of Halloween celebrations came from the Irish and Scottish custom of carving turnips into lanterns as a way of remembering souls in purgatory.


Mexico, Latin America and Spain celebrate Dia de los Muertes also known as"Day of the Dead," which begins on October 31 and ends on November 2 or All Souls Day. Dia de los Muertes honors deceased loved ones and ancestors, and is characterized by breads, candies and other foods in the shapes of skulls and skeletons.  The English stopped celebrating Halloween during the period that Martin Luthers Protestant Reformation began to spread.

The tradition arrived in America with Irish and Scottish immigrants.  In modern times Halloween evolved into a secular community event that is celebrated by children going house to house wearing costumes asking for treats.  Since pumpkins are indigenous to the western hemisphere and much larger than turnips for carving, American houses often display a pumpkin, carved or un-carved, out front as a sign that trick-or-treating is welcomed.

Halloween remains a popular holiday enjoyed by both children and adults especially in the United States, Canada and Ireland.  Wilmington is home to many creative people and while walking home with my granddaughter, Juliana, over the weekend we decided to capture the spirit of this souling season by taking a few photographs to post on "I Spy a Friend."  

Marilyn
Sister Cities Association, Wilmington, NC (USA)

Lost Taino Tribe

Yesterday's post spoke about Columbus' encounter with the Taino tribe and the correctness of the term "discoverer" of the new world composed of what is now the Americas and the string of islands in the Caribbean basin.  This morning I received my electronic edition of the Smithsonian Magazine and being October it featured an article on the Taino.  I could not resist the urge to read further. The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in our nation's capital held a symposium this summer titled, "Consciousness of Taino: Exploration of Identity."  The focus was on the survival of Taino identity and material culture in contemporary Caribbean consicousness.  There is a blog created by a group in Puerto Rico that presents an interesting perspective on the topic.  Anyone interested in exploring this further can visit http://anthropology.si.edu/cm/taino.htm or http://losttainotrib.ning.com. Our sister cities in Barbados and Belize may have a special interest in this piece of history.  SCAW found a lesson plan on the Taino developed by the Utah Department of Education that could be used in grades 3-5.  Send me a post if you are interested and I will forward the curriculum to you.

Smiles,
Marilyn
Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA) 

Through The Looking Glass

This week we celebrated Columbus Day in the United States. According to the history books it is generally accepted that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492.  Other key facts children are taught include that he was born in Genoa, Italy although later become a Portuguese citizen.  Having been turned down by King John II of Portugal, he approached King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain for money to finance an expedition to the west. The Queen said yes and there it all began - Columbus set sail for the Indies.

In 1937 United States President Franklin Roosevelt declared October 12 a federal holiday in recognition of Columbus and the first European settlements in the "New World." That has since changed to the second Monday in October.  Many cities and streets in America bear Columbus' name.  Over time the subject of who actually discovered America has been questioned since many believe Viking explorers from Scandinavia arrived before Columbus' expedition.  There is also the Native American perspective that raises questions about events that led to the demise of the history and culture of the indigenous people in the Americas.    The first native Americans followed their food source [animals] over the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska.  They separated over time into different groups. The tribe that met Columbus was called the Tainos which eventually became extinct.  Several sources indicate that the Tainos were peaceable people that took care of one another.

Columbus Day as an American holiday is not uniformly celebrated in modern times.  Many large cities still hold a parade and other events organized by Italian-American societies or clubs.  More often it is a day to be off school or work to go shopping or to the movies. Do you think the cartoon to the right is clever, funny, mean spirited, or shows disrespect to Italian Americans?

Do you have a holiday or festival you are celebrating during the fall months to share? 

Smiles,
Marilyn
Sister Cities Association of Wilmington (USA)