After a week of Global Village festivities, including cultural art and poetry day Tuesday and an international fashion show Thursday, students concluded a week of celebrating the many represented cultures at RBHS by hosting booths Friday, March 18 informing other students and faculty of their respective backgrounds through wearing traditional dress, playing games and distributing popular cultural foods.

Global Village, a long-held RBHS tradition, did not take place last year because of COVID-19-related complications. Sophomores and freshmen looked forward to experiencing and helping organize their first Global Village, while juniors and seniors readily jumped back into the various celebrations. Two students shared their experience walking around the booths and two students talked about what it was like running booths.

Sadra Aliakbarpour, freshman (Iran booth)

“We got to meet a lot of nice people, and they came and tried our food and asked about our culture. It was nice we got to share. I thought it was just gonna be a mess of people floating around not really paying attention to the cultures [and] going for the food. A lot of them were actually interested in everything about the food.”

Ema Iwasaki, sophomore (Japan booth)

“I didn’t expect there to be so many different booths. Also, it was a lot more busy than I expected, especially because all the food ran out on the first round. There were about three large plates of food [at the Japan booth] plus some soup kind of thing, so kind of a lot [of food] actually. We’ve just been telling people that we ran out. We had little crackers and little snacks to give out so that helped, and we gave out stickers too.”

Aloria Lee, junior

“I explored the booths and I had fun. I learned a lot about different countries and different places and how they made their food, and I just thought it was a lot of fun. I really liked the Thailand food that was in the cafeteria.”

Henry Nguyen, senior

“I went to several booths in Global Village. I participated in the activities and tried many of the foods there. I’ve gone to Global Village [every year] and each time it’s been an amazing experience.  I really liked the rice bowls in the Japanese booth. Those were my favorite but so many of the foods were good.”

Did you go to Global Village? Let us know in the comments below.