West Berkeley International Food Festival, June 29, 2008

This was the third annual International Food Festival in West Berkeley. The weather was a little breezy - perfect conditions for my pinwheel idea. Berkeley Public Library-West Branch set up its table at the festival to attract old and new users to our programs and services. Most children and their parents came to our table just to make the pinwheels. We also got some adults that were new to Berkeley, who were interested in finding out about the WIFI-internet at the library. Despite economic hard times, thousands came out to celebrate diversity and to sample many kinds of food from many different cultures.





I also brought a bubble bottle to pull in the kids more effectively. Some of the two or three year-olds could not make the pinwheel themselves, so I let them blow the bubbles while I made the pinwheel for them. I also showed staff to make the pinwheel so they can assist me because we sometimes got three or four kids at our table the same time. Thanks everybody for your help.

Here Marge, the manager at West Branch gave horns to Warren, West Branch's supervisor, but he looked down just in time and missed it.



Warren in turn gave me the rabbit ears, and I tried to do the same, but I was too short to manage that. Darn! Tall people do have some advantages sometimes.



Our table was full of library's handouts about various programs/services, and supplies to make the pinwheel. Thank you Marge for providing the materials, and I also would like to thank a student volunteer for cutting up the squares.



From left to right: Karin, a supervisor from Claremont Branch, Patricia and Duc from West Branch.



Karin is such a young at heart person, she like to make faces when posing for the pictures.

















What a good way to attract curious and creative minds, right?





Anh-Vu lined up to get some Indian ice cream. They had a long list of exotic names for vaious flavors, my favorite one was Mango. The ice cream line was long all through the day.









Besides the food, there was also music, dance and other activities.



Duc is a man of peace, every time we posed for the picture, he would make that sign. Here we are with Juan. Both Juan and I work at North Branch.








I really like this man's tiger-bicycle so I asked to take his picture. Interestingly, a woman behind him had a matching helmet and a bike. Coincidence or were they a couple?

Here to diversity, creativity, food and friendship. Cheers!