Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children May/June 2017

1.Thousands of ships make their way to the Netherlands every year for Europe’s largest sailing festival – Sail Amsterdam. The event was held for the first time in 1975 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the city. 2. Hurry up, spring! That’s the theme of Maslenitsa, or the Pancake Festival. A Russian festival held eight weekends before Easter, the centerpiece of the celebration is blini. These round, golden pancakes represent the sun, which residents are welcoming back after the dark days of winter. 3. Put on your dancing shoes; it’s time for la feria de abril. Held in Seville, Spain, when the city’s tens of thousands of orange trees are in blossom, the festival includes dancing, and a lot of it! 4. It takes months of preparation to create the…

January Timkat The quiet village of Lalibela, Ethiopia, is transformed into a noisy, bustling place as tens of thousands of pilgrims, both young and old, arrive there in mid-January each year. They come to participate in the age-old rituals of Timkat, or Epiphany. Some walk for days, or even months, to take part in the worship. Timkat rituals reenact John’s baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. February Tet Tet is a joyous time filled with wonderful sounds, colors, and scents. The most important Vietnamese holiday, Tet, marks the lunar New Year. In Hanoi, the capital city, families prepare for Tet by buying flowers, decorations, firecrackers, new clothes, and gifts and cooking Banh Chung cakes, the special Tet food. (Tet can fall in late January or in early to mid-February.)…

HOW DO YOU TELL AN ASIAN ELEPHANT FROM AN AFRICAN ONE? African • Large ears, shaped like the continent of Africa. Larger surface area of ears keeps them cool in the blazing African sun. • Fuller, more rounded head with single dome at top • Males and females can grow tusks, (but not always). Asian • Smaller ears. • Live in cool jungle-areas, so they don’t need as much protection from heat. • Twin domed head with an indentation in the middle • Only males grow tusks, (but not always). In India and Asia, elephants are superstars. They have played an important role in religious events, marriage ceremonies, and on the battlefield since ancient times. Throughout India, the elephant-headed god Ganesh is revered and worshipped. Elephants symbolize strength and wealth…

Most people love a party. Good food, lively music, maybe some fireworks to cap off a day spent with family and friends — festivals are usually fun-filled days when people can take a break from everyday chores. Some festivals, like Mardi Gras and Carnival, revolve around religious beliefs. They are a time to let loose before the somber period of Lent. Other festivals honor a specific person, event, or food. Have you ever been to a pumpkin or apple festival in the fall? You could travel the world and spend each day celebrating a different festival or event. But no matter how far you travel, you will see many similarities in the ways and reasons why people celebrate. Ancient people created festivals as a way of thanking their gods for…

– Off watch! – On watch! The four hours of my gangway watch have come to an end, and I’m ready to dive into the thick of action. The quay of the harbor is buzzing with visitors of all sorts — foreign tourists and local residents, families with kids and coveys of teens, sailors, and journalists. Only once every five years does Amsterdam host such an event! Tall ships from all around the world have gathered for one of the biggest sailing festivals in Europe — Sail Amsterdam. I’m here as a crew of the frigate Shtandart, the wooden replica of the Russian man-of-war, which was built in 1703. The bright yellow standard waving on the top of the 33-meter-tall main mast is like a beacon for us in the…

“Dark, heavy clouds weigh on our shoulders,” Natalia Korteleva says about winter in Vyborg, her hometown in northern Russia. On the shortest days of the year, in late December, the sun rises after 10 a.m. and sets before 4 p.m. By mid-February, lengthened days filled with 9.5 hours of light make people absolutely giddy about shaking off winter. For more than a thousand years, this giddiness has marked Russia’s annual Maslenitsa festival encouraging spring to hurry along. Today, Russians love their hearty, playful celebration just as people did in pagan times, before Prince Vladimir introduced Christianity in 988. Russians keep ancient Maslenitsa traditions alive and also connect them with their Russian Orthodox Church. Though the pagan Maslenitsa occurred at the equinox in March, when day and night are equal in…