Cultures converge at International Dinner

The Marble Hill School for International Studies celebrates its diverse and multicultural student body every day — but the night of Dec. 17 was special. It was the school’s 13th annual International Dinner.

“Basically, tonight we wear own dress and bring our own foods from our culture, and we just dance,” said senior Fatoumata Cisso, who hails from Guinea.

Students and their families brought in dishes from their home countries for a big potluck. Countries represented included Yemen, Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Palestine and Colombia — and that was just the dessert table.

Luisais Taveras, a firecracker of a sophomore, brought flan from her native Dominican Republic.

“It’s a dessert with condensed milk, eggs and vanilla extract,” she explained.

Luisais, who tasked herself with handing out napkins and cutlery, was wearing a green beaded shirt she had picked out from the school’s collection of traditional clothing from across the globe.

“We’re borrowing. After you spend so much time with different cultures, you’re everything in a little box, like a perfume!” she laughed. “You’re not one kind, you’re many. We spend so much time focusing on schoolwork and different stuff, it’s just one night for all of us to come together and learn about one another and have great food.”

For students who usually have to follow a strict dress code, the night was also a chance to express themselves through fashion. Some girls wore colorful saris; others sported traditional African wrappers and headscarves. Boys showed off their heritage in Punjabi suits and Middle Eastern dishdashas.

To kick off the festivities, the ninth-grade salsa class brought down the house with their fancy footwork, complete with dramatic dips and lifts. Then the dance teachers, who come to Marble Hill through the arts education organization DreamYard, invited everyone to the front and guided partners through the finer points of Latin social dancing.

Soon someone switched the music to an Afro-Pop selection, and the group salsa lesson evolved into an impromptu dance circle, full of loud cheering and friendly teasing.

“My African kids!” said Principal Kirsten Larson with a laugh. “They want their African music.”