It's easy to become isolated from the rest of the University of Illinois campus when you spend so much time here at Uni. But there's a rich menu of campus activities and events to choose from if you want to be adventurous. Jie Han found that out Saturday when she spent the evening at the U of I's Fete Fantastique Francophone.

JIE HAN
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Monday, April 28, 2008

THE DAY BEFORE our long weekend, I was given a handout by my French teacher. It was for a campus event, the Fete Fantastique Francophone, held from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday.

The event was sponsored by the Francophone Community Partnership, a support organization for French-speaking immigrants from Africa. Not only would people be speaking French, but proceeds would go to benefit the Democratic Republic of Congo's Independence Festival in Chicago.

At first, I thought that I wouldn't have time to go, given my busy schedule, which included competing in the IHSA state journalism tournament Saturday morning at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

And in any case, I probably wouldn't have a ride. But to make a long story short, I was at the YMCA with fellow senior Linda Song on campus a little before 7, the advertised start time.

After paying $3 each, we hung around the first floor of the building, looking at the magazine rack and shelves of books. There were advertisements for the Dump & Run posted, recent issues of Time magazines, and set-up chessboards.

Linda and I played chess for a while, listening to various pieces of audio equipment malfunction as volunteers hurried to get things ready for the show. (I didn't know that the microphones could make so many different ringing noises.)

It was about 7:30 p.m. before everything got set up. By then, a reporter had interviewed a couple people and a line was going through the buffet, featuring many dishes that I believe were mostly African. There weren't a lot of people there, perhaps around 50 or so, so the line went fairly quickly. Such a large variety of dishes!

I particularly liked the fried dough balls, which were slightly sweet. I also liked one of the chocolate dishes. It was about a fourth-of-an-inch thick and resembled a cake, but melted in my mouth. It was like fudge, but rougher and less dense.

While we were eating, a PowerPoint presentation was displayed behind us, showing us images of the sponsoring organization and outlining what it did. A couple of speakers presented the group to us, some in French and others in English.

Unfortunately, the din was loud enough to obscure sounds from where we sat in the back of the room, so neither Linda nor I got a good sense of what was happening.

However, I vividly recall hearing loud music, given that my fingers were sore from being in my ears for so long. There was a guitarist who was singing karaoke style to a song blasted from the speakers. There was a group performing African songs. There were three dance troupes who performed — one adult, one young girls, and one young boys.

The kids were the most energetic, dancing to contemporary pop music. I'm not an expert in judging dance moves, but they were quite good — somewhat resembling moves done in professional music videos. In fact, you could hear people cheering above the music.

After that, there was a mini-fashion show featuring brightly patterned clothing and several different headdresses. Most of the women wore different-style dresses; only one wore a colorful suit, in conjunction with a beret and purse.

There was a model with a mini-jacket that resembled a shawl. I remember being most impressed by a large yellow piece of cloth wrapped in the shape of a rose. At the end, the models danced with each other, opening the floor to any bystanders who wanted to dance.

That was the cue for Linda and I to go — neither of us danced, and would not have cared to among the predominately college student crowd. That's for next year.