Yesterday I had a wonderful time spending the morning with two of my best friends enjoying breakfast at an amazing place called The Pancake House off of Ladue road. The breakfast there is AMAZING, I highly recommend if you have never been there before. Afterwards we went to the STL Galleria and walked around. I really enjoyed myself and look forward to hanging out with more girls more in the future.
Later on that day around 2:30pm I went down to Forest Park to enjoy the first day of the Saint Louis African Arts Festival. It only took around a hour to find parking but hey, when there is a will there is a way. As I made my way to the World's Pavilion where it was being held I could hear the drums beating and was evening dancing a little as I made my way up a hill of grass. I went through the pavilion and checked out the wares before making my way to the main stage where I heard the drums.
An elder was being honored by drummers who had connections with Katherine Dunham the great dancer and choregrapher who has ties to Saint Louis. The drumming was so amazing you couldn't help but be moved and dancing where you stood. After the performance and dedication I went back through the pavilion to really check out all the vendors and their products. There were some vendors I knew and spoke with. Last year's festival I found amazing jewelry. This year's festival my mission was to find some african cloths to up my headwrap game with. Eventually I found seven beautiful cloths to add to my collection. I found out from one vendor that I bought cloth from that the ideal length for a standard wrap is around 2 yards of fabric. He was selling the $5 a yard, which is a great price compared to some stores.
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| four of my head wrap cloths |
After making my purchases I took them to my car and went back so I could focus on taking pictures. While going through again and taking pictures I could hear another performance going on. When I went back to the stage I could see a wonderful dancing performance going on with some young ladies and when I say they could dance I'm telling you they could DANCE! I was so enthralled with their performance that I forgot to take pictures! Ugh, I'm learning though. Overall I had a wonderful time and might even go back there the other two days. The weather was simply perfect. No rain like last year, the breeze was cool and delightful. Oh and the Afros, dreads, hi-tops and low-fades were in full effect. My people are so beautiful :)
Link to my pictures below since Flickr whats to be a bunch of asses and disable the embed option.
