Mardi Gras Essay

Ever since fourth grade, one of my best friends have been Taylor Elam. Over the years that we’ve been friends we’ve had some jokes. My mom loves Mexican food; Taylor used to not like mexican food very much. Whenever our families would go out to eat, my mom would suggest something mexican. Whenever mexican was suggested by my mom, Taylor would respond “of course Hope wants mexican,” and whenever someone would ask where we were going to eat Taylor would say, “Hope wants mexican!” which we would always laugh about.

Uwem Akpan’s story, “An Ex-Mas Feast” is a story of the struggles that one family goes through to give gifts on their upcoming Christmas season. Akpan introduces the reader to the struggles of the main characters, which directly ties into the details of impoverished town that they live in. Jigana, one of the story’s main characters, starts off as a naïve 8 year old little boy who was anxious to start going to school. In a stark contrast, Maisha, the eldest sister at 12 years old, held her own and prostituted to bring in money for her family. The second oldest, Naema, was closer to Maisha than any of the others, and Maisha gave her tips and tricks of her trade. Akpan begins the story by saying that the

I am going to tell you about a famous, yet kinda eerie celebration that takes place in mexico. This is a tradition celebrated by the Mexican Natives, most Mexican Americans (including myself) don’t even acknowledge this day, unless they happen to be visiting mexico at the time of this event.

     For someone new to Mardi Gras, you must first simply relax and have fun. It is a time for families to bring the kids out for some fun and celebration. The local Newspaper will have listings of the daily parades. For the younger kids, going to any of the Day-Time parades is best. The streets are packed w/ cleverly costumed paraders, marching bands, music, and thousands of people. It's good to get there early to grab a spot to set up since the good spots tend to disappear quickly. Waiting for the parade to make it to your area can be tedious, so brink some food and chairs. Sun block would be a good idea as well, it may be sunny out there. When the floats arrive they will be tossing hundreds of beads, cups, doubloons, and little toys overboard into the streets. Since there are so many people in the crowd, you should try to get the "Krewe's" attention. Many

It was the perfect night for an adventure through a haunted house. My cousins Mariah and Tyina were planning to join me on a October 31st night to remember. The first thing the three of us did was get dinner and talk about how we were kind of nervous to go and walk the haunted house. After dinner we all got in the car and drove to our destination and then we bought the tickets and were waiting to get in. We all felt as if we had butterflies in our stomachs. As we were about to walk through the door to the haunted house we were startled because of all the strange sounds that we were hearing as we walked in. Finally we were able to look around. We were not so scared until Tyina had stumbled upon a mysterious door.

This year I decided to go out and enjoy a little. In addition to enjoying myself, I can also learn a bit more about the holiday itself. I wanted to go to a parade that was not very crowded, so I picked the Krewe of Cleopatra. It was perfect for a beginner at going to parade. It was not packed with people and it was a somewhat famous parade. It was an all-female parade, so I felt a bit awkward for attending it, but I was mistaken. I arrived there an hour ahead in order to find a parking spot. There I saw other men and it was not as awkward as I initially thought it would be. Once the floats were coming down from the street and I can see the women standing on top throwing beads into the crowd. These floats were filled with different colors and the women were dressed in black. The crowd was getting rowdy and I could barely stand still. Once the float came by I managed to catch some. These beads were a signifier that has a special signified here in New Orleans and other places that celebrated Mardi Gras. By the end of the parade I was tired standing and following all the floats. Even though it was tiring, I still had lots of

How often does one actually consider where a product originates or under what conditions it was produced? While out shopping a consumers main focus is on obtaining the item needed or wanted not selecting merchandise based on the “made in” tag. It is common knowledge that many products are imported from other countries. However, little thought is given to the substandard conditions that workers endure to eke out a living to maintain a poverty stricken existence. In Mardi Gras: Made in China director David Redmon demonstrates the effect globalization and capitalism have on the lives of the owner and workers of a bead factory in China while contrasting the revelry of partygoers in New Orleans. Underpaid, overworked staff toil and live in an

Cinco de Mayo means the fifth of May. It is not an independence day for Mexico like most unknowledgeable people think. Mexican Independence Day is celebrated on the 15th of September. Mexico declared independence from Spain on the 24th of August 1821. Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday either. Mexico and the United States savor this holiday because it is the day where Mexican peasants/ commoners defeated the French and Mexican traitor army that double them in size in Puebla, Mexico one hundred miles away from Mexico city on the 5th of May, 1862.

When we put the boat back in as we are driving down the bayou we see some duck swimming in the woods and we stop and pull up and tie off the boat and start walking to them. Well, as we are chasing them we jump some up but we don't shot. Well, when we find the ones we were chasing and we shot my dad hits one and it lays there and as we go to get it gets up and flies away. well we decided to go get the boat and the decoys and hunt there well on the way out my cousin gets the bright idea to try to climb over the log instead of going around it and I said ¨ have fun trying to get over that log¨ and he said ¨ I will.¨ When he gets to the top of the log and gets stood up he losses his balance and slips and falls as he is falling he drops his gun in the water and luckily it hits his legs and he catches it and when he gets up he looks like he is going to cry and then I bust out laughing and so does my dad then my cousin just starts laughing. When we got to the boat my dad said do you all want to hunt here or go were we normally do and we said were we normally do and he said ok. When we get there my cousin takes his waiters completely off and dumps the water out of them and puts the back on and when we get to our spot there ducks are everywhere. We end up going home with every body limited out which mean everybody kills their limit

We were all bored and were all wondering for something to do and then my friend said “lets go ding-dong-ditching”. We all thought that was going to be fun and a good idea. We were all discussing on what house to get.Then we all went to one house and they made me ring the doorbell. With a lot of hesitation I finally rang the doorbell and we all ran and hid as quickly as possible.

During my eighth grade year at Water Valley Junior High, I experienced the worse night of my life when we woke up to our house on fire. We lost everything we had. I literally had only the one shirt I was wearing and a pair of socks. After the house fire, I missed a

Halloween, a holiday many of us know and love. A day when we celebrate together with our friends, family, neighbors and community. We go from door to door collecting candy, sweets and much more, racing on who can approach the most houses or who can collect the most candy in the group. It is all fun and games when trick or treating, and it has evolved into so much more than from the past. As years pass by, we celebrate this holiday annually, but of everything we’ve taken in from being children through our teen and adult years, do we truly know the background of Halloween Day?

The night went on as more and more people showed up. Everyone was having a great time listening to music, hanging around the fire, and shooting off fireworks. Every now and then people would want to ride around on the Kubota but it only had three seats so we would load people on it. Three in the seats, two-four people in the bed, one person holding onto each side, and my favorite spot, the hood (yeah it was stupid but fun). Finally, it was about 9 P.M. and the last group of people had shown up so Chuck, Dylan, and I rode up to the barn to pick them up. When we got there, we realized they had brought one extra person with them so there was three of them instead of two. Chuck was driving and Dylan rode shotgun while one of our friends took the

Once upon a time there was a huge celebration, everybody has been looking forward to this for about a year, this celebration is called mardi gras. Mardi gras will begin tomorrow so every store in new orleans is overcrowded with people from all over the world stocking up on decorations, costumes, and most importantly bead necklaces for when they throw them up in the trees,. Me and my grandaughter own one of the largest celebration stores in new orleans called “ Me + YOU”. We always enjoy peoples faces when they see just the thing that they have been looking for, We love it so much that we paid to have one of our own floats in one of the worlds largest parades running across our streets. You knew when it was getting late when all of the crazy tourist start running down the streets screaming “ no more days!!!! No more days!!!!,“ so I started to head home on my little motorcycle, some people thought it was crazy to see an old granny on a bike but that way i know that i am the coolest grandma out there. I pulled up to my small blue cottage near the shore and caught my family hiding outside and they all yelled

Eid Al-Adha, an Arabic term meaning “the feast of sacrifice”, is one of the prominent and holy days of Islamic celebration that takes place annually. Eid Al-Adha celebration begins after the leaving of the pilgrims performing the Hajj the Mount Arafat, a hill east of Mecca. All Muslims around the world celebrate Eid Al-Adha to show respect to the willingness of Abraham, the Muslims’ prophet. In Afghanistan, Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Adha in various ways. Mostly, their customs and traditions are based on three performances through all the Eid days; that is, Morning Prayer, Family and Relatives Eid greetings. Each of the above performances has its own special way and time to be performed. The examples show that in addition to having dependency and faith to Islamic customs, Afghanistan has its own special independent tradition of the celebrating Eid Al-Adha.