MESA
MESA
Monday, 15 November 2010
Last night - in perfect weather - we enjoyed the biennial Middle Eastern and South Asian (MESA) Cultural Evening, our first regional cultural evening for this academic year. The students from these regions had been preparing the event for several weeks, and the evening was certainly something to remember.
Actually, MESA was much more than just a one single evening event this year. We have been entertained by Middle Eastern and South Asian music every morning in the Courtyard for a couple of weeks, and we had an excellent open-air Global Issues Forum (GIF) on Thursday evening on the theme of “Religion and Government”, focussing on four MESA countries - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and India. There was even a MESA treasure hunt a couple of days ago.
Last night’s activities began with a feast of Middle East and South Asian food in the canteen, with some of the best spicy food I have eaten for quite some time. Indeed, the food reminded me very powerfully of one of the reasons that I enjoy travelling in the Middle East and South Asia so much!
After dinner there was a fabulous cultural show show in the courtyard that followed a theme of tales and stories from the Middle East and South Asia. We had been primed for the show by an excellent student-produced promotional video (see the link above), and the show certainly did not disappoint despite the very high expectations we had.
The students who performed the show had spent tens of hours practising, and the effort was certainly worth it. Congratulations to our students, not only from the Middle East and South, but the many many others who joined in, thus gaining a much deeper insight into the cultures of these very important regions.
To give you a sense of the colour and magic of last night’s performances, I have compiled a gallery of 75 images - click HERE to see the images.