Two weeks ago in Adelaide Womadelaide was on. This weekend the Clipsal 500 (V8 supercars to the uninitiated) is on. What a contrast. We’ve gone from a bunch of hippies and world music and dance lovers to a crowd of revheads. We’ve gone from loud music to loud cars.
This car race is not my thing but I was reminded of it this morning on my way to work when four men walked out of their hotel dressed in their car gear, obviously on their way to the race.
My dad is on his way over this morning too to attend it for the four days so I will get to catch up with him and mum over the weekend. Mum doesn’t go to the race but she’ll be around.
I had a Womadelaide teaser a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to comment on it since then, but haven’t until now.
As I said in my teaser it was a feast for me. I wasn’t really that excited about it as I hadn’t purchased a ticket at all. To be honest I wasn’t that fussed if I went or not. As the time came closer a friend said she might be getting a half price pass and would I be interested in going on the Sunday as she was going away and wouldn’t be able to use it. Sure I said, count me in. I thought it wouldn’t happen until I got an email the Thursday prior, so Sunday was on.
That night another friend phoned and asked if I would like to go on the Saturday afternoon prior to babysitting her daughter as prearranged. After a bit of umming and aahhing, I decided to take her up on the offer. The only reason for my indecision was doing two days with Jaycee Junior could be a bit of a nightmare as the last time we went it wasn’t much fun for me. That was two years ago, however, so I thought I’d give it another go.
We arrived at Womadelaide on early Saturday afternoon and I immediately felt at peace. One of the things I love about is is the atmosphere. Even though there are six music stages and numerous other visual feasts it is a peaceful event. This became clear to me when on the Sunday night (I know I’m skipping ahead) I was standing next to two drunk men and I realised I hadn’t seen anyone drunk up until that time and I was bit put out. Herein is another contrast to Clipsal 500. I haven’t been to a big car race for nearly 20 years but I do remember all the drunk people.
Another great thing about Womadelaide is the Kidzone. Well it’s a good and bad thing. I had trouble escaping the Kidzone because Jaycee Junior (JJ) wanted to keep going on the bouncy castle. It was frustrating at first because when it was his turn (we had to queue) he was too shy to get on there and by the time he finally ventured onto the bouncy castle it was time to get off and of course he wanted to get on again.
As well as bouncy castles, there was the nylon zoo with a huge inflatable animal (a frog on Saturday and a turtle on Sunday). Every hour the kids go into the nylon zoo area, get dressed up in nylon animal outfits and do a little parade around the Womad grounds (the beautiful Botanic Park). After about 10-15 minutes of parade they come back and enter the huge inflatable animal where a fabulous storyteller tells them a story about a doo-doo bird or Harrumbi and others.
In the Kidzone there’s also so much more – The Amazing Drumming Monkeys, Korean drummers on Sunday, other workshops no doubt I missed, craft stuff. You could spend all your time in the Kidzone but there’s so much else to see and it requires really great negotiation skills and a bit of whining reminiscent of Kim saying ‘It’s my turn now’ in Kath and Kim. I’ll have to remember when I go for my next job interview and they ask me about my negotiation skills, not only will I be able to cite work examples, but negotiating with my son as well.
I did manage to get beyond the Kidzone but will save that for next time. In the meantime see my photos of Womadelaide at Flickr.
Read Womadelaide 2005 (part 2)
