International Village: Cultures gather as festival begins

By JEFF STITT

jstitt@yourmvi.com

Your nose, taste buds, eyes, ears and dancing feet are a passport around the world this week in McKeesport.

The city’s 61st International Village festival kicked off Tuesday after a year’s hiatus as a result of precautions related to the pandemic.

Many on Stephen Barry Field and under the Andrew J. Jakomas Blue Top Pavilion at Renziehausen Park — the venue where the three-day ethnic food, dancing and music festival is held each year — remarked Tuesday that “it wouldn’t be International Village without rain.”

That’s because Mother Nature, on an almost annual basis, brings showers down on Village goers. 

It rained at the beginning of Tuesday’s festivities, but the majority of the night turned out to be beautiful as countless people stood in line to get their favorite cuisine from booths representing some of the nations and cultures of the world.

It’s almost impossible to not have your taste buds water the minute you walk into the open-air food court at the Village.

Smells such as seasoned lamb at the Greek and Serbian booths, succulent ribs at the Ghana booth, apple dumplings at the Swedish booth, haluski at the Croatian booth and grilled pineapple at the Hawaiian booth fill the air, luring in passersby.

Nationalities and ethnicities represented via food Tuesday included Austria, Croatia, Ghana, Greece, Egypt, France, Hawaii, Italy, Lebanon, Philippines, Serbia, Sweden, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The McKeesport Lions Club sold hand-scooped ice cream and Turner’s iced tea, while young people who are summer workers for the city sold other soft drinks.

Those who didn’t make it to International Village on Tuesday don’t have to miss out on their favorite foods. The festival is open from 3 to 9 p.m. tonight and Thursday, and all of the aforementioned booths, which are run by local churches, organizations and businesses, are slated to be on hand.

The festival’s longtime emcee and entertainment coordinator, Mikey Dee, said International Village wouldn’t be complete without good music and dancing.

On Tuesday, the Radost Tamburitzans group played Tamburitza music for dance lovers under the blue top pavilion and drew a small crowd of locals who grew up dancing a traditional dance known as Kolo. The collective folk dance performed by dancers who are interlinked to form a chain, usually moving in a circular line holding hands with their arms down.

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