'An adrenaline junkie place'
David Cole | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 7 months AGO
<p>The fourth annual Multicultural Faire at Lakes Magnet Middle School was a popular place to be on Saturday, as it was open to the public and visitors enjoyed music, food and arts and crafts from many different cultures.</p>
<p>Dave Powell, right, plays the harp guitar Saturday at the Multicultural Faire at Lakes Magnet Middle School. He was joined on stage by Tony Powell, center, and Arvid Lundin.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - For those craving a taste of Kazakhstan on Saturday, perhaps some baursaki, Lakes Magnet Middle School had it.
"(Baursaki) is made at parties and for big festivals and events," said Lakes math teacher Keri Wendt. "It's just got milk and flour, (and) it's basically a fry bread."
It was only appropriate to have some of it at this year's fourth annual Multicultural Faire at the school.
Wendt taught at an international school in Kazakhstan two years ago, and she said the people there always greet their friends with food.
Dave Eubanks, a retired Lakes teacher and founder and organizer of the annual fair, said this was the first year visitors could learn about Kazakhstan. South Africa and New Zealand also had booths for the first time.
Kristin Odenthal, a sixth-grade teacher at Lakes, didn't have any vuswa to offer hungry visitors to the South Africa booth. But having spent two years working in the country for the Peace Corps, she was able to serve up plenty of information about the country.
"The people are just amazingly friendly," she said. "The kids wanted to learn. I was in a classroom where there were like 70 kids. They'd be sitting on cardboard boxes, and you wouldn't hear a peep out of them. They would be looking straight up at the teacher wanting to learn."
She helped teachers there, working at seven primary schools.
At her booth she also was showing off beadwork done by women in a village she was in.
Lakes sixth-grade teacher Lisa Barnett had the New Zealand booth. She was a student teacher in New Zealand last year.
"I was living in the north island," she said. "Some of the things I learned about was the Maori culture - they are the natives that live there."
Her New Zealand displays included Maori poi balls, a traditional dance tool; a rugby ball from the national team, the All Blacks; some works by New Zealand artists and some books.
"It's known as an adrenaline junkie place," Barnett said.
The Multicultural Faire was a celebration of different cultures, bringing people from throughout North Idaho together to share music, food, clothing, crafts, dance and folklore.