International Week at school

Graham's school recently organized an International Week and gosh, is it international!  There is a total of 78 nationalities at the school!!!  Although not all the countries participated, it was great fun to see all the different traditional outfits the kids (and even parents!) had put on that one day for the parade.

We only had one Chinese traditional outfit that would fit Charlie and thankfully, we were able to borrow another for Graham.  Good, good!

On the day of the parade and food fest, Charlie and I hung out in the Coffee "Hub" as they call it, with the other Malaysian moms.  Tables and decorations were only allowed to be set up at 9am in the designated spot for the event.  Thankfully I had brought a coloring book for Charlie.  The other moms were commenting on how therapeutic this fancy coloring book was!

Can you believe it?  One hour later.... Ta da!  I did help Charlie with some coloring as well, but he was so good at sitting at the table for a whole hour! ... with a quick snack in between of course :-)

Okay! Time to set up the Malaysian "booth"!  I managed to borrow a Kadazan (local Sabah tribe) traditional outfit from a friend that works in the Malaysian Embassy in Oman.  Thank you Mimi!  She also threw in the red Cheongsam.

Charlie is keeping himself busy, as usual!

Look at all these people at the parade!

There's our little boy towards the end of the Malaysian contingent!  It was very nice of the other older Malay boys in the same school to hold his hands:

And here's Charlie looking on, in his fine silk outfit:

Once the parade was done, time for some Kung Fu!

Man down! Man down!

Family photo op!  Too bad the boys weren't really looking at the camera.

And thankfully I didn't rip my Cheongsam. It took a few late nights altering it so I could fit myself back into it.  And amazing what a tummy-control underwear can do too! :-P

We went around to visit various booths of other countries.  We didn't try too many other foods.  The boys were more interested in getting some henna from the Pakistan booth.  It was amazing how patient they were in waiting for their turn despite telling them that henna was just for girls!

What a fun day! A lot of the Malaysian moms were very busy serving the food that they had prepared for the event.

Perhaps next year I might be brave enough to volunteer in cooking something.  We'll see!  Oh, some of us did do a little Joget - a traditional malay dance.  Not very synchronized but I think all of us had a good time!