Appalachian Festival

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Appalachian Festival here in Frostburg. As someone who comes from a busy city, the idea of attending a festival with tons of locals excited me. First off, I would like to start by saying the music was quite entertaining. The festival featured an old-time spring band who played Appalachian-style music. Although that type of music is not typically “my style”, I found myself tapping my feet at some points during the performances. I guess you could call the type of music there “bluegrass”. My favorite were the Church Sisters, a duo. Their sound was beautiful. I used to participate in the chorus at my school, from elementary all the way to high school, so I definitely am familiar with many types of music. I never expected to like this so much, though! Since the event I have found their Spotify page and listen to them. I love animals, so to see goats were so amazing! I even got to pet them! I love seeing things from different cultures and seeing how I can relate it to mine, or even to someone else’s and to see so many things centered around the Appalachian culture was neat. As someone from Syria, I can understand and appreciate other cultures. I liked how they express themselves through arts and crafts and songs, and I think that is so meaningful because it really shows they are in tune with their culture and beliefs. I appreciate my culture too and I believe that is a really important thing to do. If you are proud of where you from I believe you should show it. All in all I think my experience was really positive, though I can’t say for certain that I would go again. I am a person who likes to experience different things and I really enjoyed going to this festival and getting familiar with the culture of different people. Although we as people may perceive differences to be negative, I think the  most important thing to remember is that while others may have different customs to you, what to remember is that it’s much easier to look into what their customs are before you judge! This festival helped me to do just that. I used to think that some things other cultures did were “weird”, but I now know that just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad.

The Church Sisters’ official webpage link: http://thechurchsisters.com/

An article about Appalachian culture: https://www.namb.net/send-relief/arm/appalachian-culture