Multicultural Festival 2006

The 2006 Queensland Multicultural Festival (QMF) was held on 15 October at Roma St Parkland. It is a huge annual event supported by the Queensland Government to promote the cultural and ethnic diversity in Australia. It was estimated that about 50,000 people attended the festival, which was started at 10 am and finished at 8.30 pm.

My volunteer experience at the QMF was fantastic!! It was an unforgettable moment - it’s definitely one of the best! I met many people from different backgrounds, watched many traditional dances, and wandered around taking pictures. One thing I regret about this festival is that I couldn’t try the foods there because I was fasting!! There were about 40 food stalls representing many countries around the world: Indonesia, Nepal, Kosovo, Denmark, Swiss, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Lebanon, India, Italy, etc. There were just too many!

My working shift was 7 am to 2 pm. It was Sunday and the public transport was not as frequent as on the weekdays. The only option I had to get to the festival was to take a train at 5.41 am! I arrived at the Parkland at 6 am and I was the first volunteer arrived. The Volunteer Coordinator, Laura, was not there yet when I came to the Banyaan Marquee to sign in my name and take the pass. So I walked around the park and familiarised myself with the place. I always love to walk around Roma St Parkland, it’s a huge and beautiful park! Due to the water restriction, there were just a few colorful plants and flowers, compared to the previous years.

At about 6.40 am, I finally met Laura. She gave me the map that I had to carry all the time (in case the visitors asked) and the volunteer pass (yay! :D). She told me that my role had been moved from a venue assistant to a site assistant. Then I met Ruth, the Site Coordinator and I started my work immediately. My job was to distribute bags of ice to all the food stalls. Each 10 kg bag of ice was sold for $5. I had to collect the money and record the number of bags taken from The Bar. Don’t worry, I wasn’t the one who carried these heavy frozen bags around. A guy who worked for the parkland helped me with the distribution and drove me around the park with the golf cart :D. It was indeed fun!! The best thing was that I met many friendly and funny people who were in charge with the stall. The people in the Hungarian and Sicillian stalls were the friendliest. They looked so happy and bright. They made jokes. They were very proud of their origins. One of the men in the Hungarian stall asked me where I come from. When I said “Indonesian”, he said “apa kabar?” LOL. The other guy excitedly told me that he’ll go to Sumatra in a few weeks :D. I finished distributing the ice at about 10 am; just before the festival started. I went back to Banyaan Marquee to bring back the money I had collected and take a rest for a while, so that I could watch the traditional dances later on.

Basically, that was the only work I had to do! Simple, right? I spent the next 4 hours watching the performances and taking pictures. There were 12 stages in total, each of them had different programs. My friends Kiki, Sally, Tika, and Ditya were going to perform a Saman Dance at 3 pm and I was specifically waiting for them ;). An Indonesian girl named Betty suddenly approached me asking me whether I’m an Indonesian. She studies communication at UQ and wanted to interview the festival director, Sebastian Flynn as part of her assignment. He was obviously so busy during the event, so he asked her to come to help him doing the QMF survey (instead of doing the interview). Since I had nothing to do, I accompanied her around and we both watched the performances together. I watched many traditional dances, i.e. Bolivian, Abyssinian, English, Croatian, Polish, Kurdish, Russian, and Mexican dances. Indonesians contributed many performances, including Saman Dance, Balinese Gamelan Orchestra, and West Javanese music.

I met up with Dayu, my classmate in German class, and her friends. Suddenly a photographer from the Courier Mail (Queensland’s newspaper) asked us if it’s ok for her to take pictures of us (Of course it was ok!! hahaha). After a couple of shots, she told us that she had taken so many pictures and had not decided which of those pictures would be published. I hope our picture will be on the Courier Mail! Hahaha… By the way, the other photographer also took a picture of me, but I don’t think he worked for any media. hehehe. Finally, at 3 pm it’s the time for Saman Dance! The dancers all add up to 15 people who are UQ Indonesian students. Hey, they’re so good!!! They got many applauds from audiences. I loved it! Good job, guys!!!

I planned to stay for another half an hour after watching the Saman Dance. But then I started getting a headache and I felt like I needed to vomit. It was a VERY hot day. I wasn’t tired nor was I hungry, but I was soo thirsty. I was totally dehydrated. It was 3.15 pm and I was pretty sure that I could stay away from water for another 3 hours. But then I couldn’t handle it :(. Once I came home, I drank soooo much water and ate food coz I was afraid that I would be sick. It was just 2 more hours before breaking the fast, you know?? Anyway, after taking shower, I went straight to Uni to meet up with my group mates to finish our assignment. I was just too tired to think about the assignment. We had to finish our assignment, coz it was due on Monday 4 pm. I complained a lot and I felt sorry for Chris, Richard, and the ‘other’ Chris. Believe it or not, I stayed at Uni until 6 am (the next day). I was too exhausted coz I had been awake for 27 hours!!! (from Sunday 3 am until Monday 6 am). That’s why I couldn’t bother editing this blog coz I really had no time.

But overall, most of the thing I did was FUN! I really enjoyed my day!! I’m glad that I took a chance to get involved at the QMF. It was a great experience. I’ll definitely be willing to be a volunteer at this event again next year!! By the way, you can view other pictures at the QMF on gallery @ amellie.net. Enjoy!!