winnipeg folk festival

It's been a while since I've written, mostly due to my being busy getting ready for Folk Fest, and then getting caught up after.

It was a great time, as usual, and this year the weather was wonderful- a little windy on Sunday and quite warm throughout, but no major systems.

We had a different spot for our booth in the Hand Made Village this year and I was a tad apprehensive- I had the set-up of our usual spot down to a science. When we arrived , I decided to not use one of the three tables I had ordered as we were in a corner site. That meant building the display more vertically in an L configuration of the two tables. It all worked out just fine, of course, and I loved the spot. I was in the shade all day and, because it was a corner spot, I was able to people watch to my heart's content.

When we are in Mexico we sell at an organic market in San Jose del Cabo every Saturday. It is a fabulous market with at least a hundred vendors, entertainment, music, drumming, dancing, bubbles, great food, and lovely people. We have been doing the market for 5 years. We take our own canopy tent and tables and set up under the big tree along with our Mexican neighbours and some ex-pats who love Baja as much as we do. It is very relaxed. It is also a great place to people watch.

That is the connection that made this Folk Fest in the new spot so much more fun. We had more room so Alan spent more time with me and we were able to sit side by side and watch, watch, watch. There is a universal quality to this kind of event and we found ourselves seeing replicas of our Baja people.

That lovely man with the shaved head must be Cesar, our artist neighbour, and that tall skinny guy is surely our surfer friend, Roger. Leah, the gallery owner who sells organic Chiapas coffee, wandered past. We thought we would see VJ, our actor friend from India come by and tell us how bee-u-ti-ful it all was. And so on...

In the Mexican market the men don't wear sarongs nor the women bikinis as they did at Folk Fest and the children are able to frolic freely. Mexico is much lower key but the ambiance at the Winnipeg Folk Fest is what leads me to apply every year. It reminds us of Mexico- good people, good vibes, a good three days together. We love it!