African Festival of Boston

If you visited City Hall Plaza on Saturday, you would have seen the African Festival of Boston. Since 2010, the Shalupe Foundation has organized the festival as an annual celebration of African culture and community. From 8:00AM to 8:00PM, music, food, and African vendors drew a substantial crowd to the plaza. You could not have missed it.

You mostly likely would have missed me, though. I recently committed to volunteering once a week, but I have not yet found an organization that suits me. When I received an email from the Shalupe Foundation looking for volunteers, I offered my afternoon and evening to volunteer at the festival. I thought it would be a good way to spend my Saturday.

Unfortunately, this was one of my worst volunteer experiences ever. I am not a picky volunteer: I will do things I hate as long as I am busy and helpful. Yesterday, I was neither. I arrived just past four in the afternoon, and I stayed until just after nine at night to help break down the tables. During most of that time, I sat behind a table protecting t-shirts. Guard duty is not a satisfying volunteer activity, even if you are protecting really nice t-shirts. Soon enough, I wanted the event to end just so I could help move tables and chairs. The experience would have been a complete disappointment if it were not for the organizer. She was nice enough that I could suffer the heat and boredom.

She did give me a chance to explore the event itself. The center of the event was performance art. Throughout the day, African musicians represented their countries with music, poetry, and dance. Although the size of the audience varied throughout the day, it always seemed happy with the event.

Crowd watching a performance in the late afternoon.

The rest of the plaza was covered in tents for African vendors and community organizations. The vendors offered a wide variety of clothes, jewelry, art, and food in African styles. Walking among the vendors may be as close as I ever get to visiting an authentic African bazaar.

Tents streching across the plaza.

I must admit that I was disappointed that the festival did not present the history and culture of Africa more substantially. I understand that the festival focused on showcasing the work of African artists, but I think the event could have benefitted from a more substantial exploration of the continent. Africa is the birthplace of the human race, but many Americans know virtually nothing about the continent. By delving into the history of the continent, the festival could have offered an experience that attendees could not have received anywhere else. Not only would this draw a larger crowd to the artists displaying their work, but it also would have made the experience of African art more meaningful. When you understand the historical and cultural context of a piece of art, it transforms from an aesthetically pleasing object into an expression of the human spirit that produced it.

I would suggest that the organizers add a historical presentation on the plaza to the next festival. It seemed to me that the event emphasized the unity of African national communities and the diversity of African culture. A presentation about the development of modern African states from diverse African peoples would reinforce both themes. It would center around a map of the continent, showing the cultural groups on the continent and the date of independence for each country. Presenters would explain the transition from separate ethnic groups to modern countries. Each country represented at the festival would also receive a timeline of its major historical events. After talking about the history of the countries, presenters would direct visitors to vendors and performers to learn more about the culture of each country. This presentation would unite the various vendors and performances into one exploration of the African continent.

Such a presentation would require a great deal of knowledge, so I would recommend that the Shalupe Foundation approach nearby universities for support. The academic partner would consult on the development of the presentation, and provide presenters during the day. African studies programs at Harvard University, Boston College, or the University of Massachusetts Boston could support the historical presentation. However, I would recommend the very active Boston University African Studies Center, which included the festival on its calendar.

I would also have loved to see a traditional storyteller tell an African folktale on stage. Traditional storytelling is an amazing art that most people in the modern world never experience. It requires a storyteller to captivate an audience without the script, complicated props, cast, and editing that even low budget movies use today. Instead, the storyteller must rely on a craft honed over thousands of years, and a story. African folktales offer great stories as well. I admit that I have only heard a few African folktales, but they were all very entertaining. They were also very different from the Greco-Roman myths that I know well. It would be both entertaining and enlightening to watch a traditional storyteller share African folktales.

It also would have been nice to have  a station for people to learn from African artists. I was impressed by the style of the art on display, and I would have liked to learn from similar artists. An art station might have also entertained the restless children in the crowd. Believe me, entertainment for children was desperately needed at the festival. (One child was so bored that he spent 20 minutes trying to fight me.)

I will definitely visit the African Festival of Boston again next year, but I will probably not again. Next time, I will just go to learn about Africa. I will just talk to the vendors, listen to the music, and eat the food. It seemed to work for the crowd.

 Enthusiastic man dancing in 90 degree heat.