ESOL: MassKara Festival (Essay)

Hi Today in ESOL we wrote an essay about one of our favourite celebrations in our culture. 

____________________________

In my city in the Philippines, we have a festival called the ‘MassKara’ Festival. A rough translation of this in English is ‘Masks for many faces’ (Mass - Many / Kara - faces). We usually celebrate this festival every 4th of October every year and it’s held in the centre of Bacolod City. This festival is celebrated to bring smiles to people. Hence, my city is also known as the city of smiles because of this well-known festival. This festival consists of a parade of people wearing colourful costumes and masks. Along the side, there are vendors selling mouth-watering street foods, balloons, souvenirs of the festival, and many more.

I recall attending the MassKara festival one time in the Philippines back in the year 2015/2016. It was memorable and exciting. For as long as I can remember, I went with my family and friends to this event. I’ve enjoyed seeing all the people parade with such eccentric, vibrant details and designs on their costumes and mask. In some cases, they also do a little dance performance-enhancing their costumes and engaging with the audience. It was pretty crowded back then because a lot of people came to see the parade.

During those times, I was nearly leaving the Philippines to go to New Zealand so it was a special experience. With that said, my family and I bought a t-shirt souvenir from the festival. We bought a matching t-shirt with the MassKara festival logo on it. Luckily, I still have the souvenir t-shirt in my closet here in New Zealand because I brought it in my personal suitcase to New Zealand.

Although now in the present, it’s been 5 years since I left the Philippines. I hope someday when the situation around the pandemic is fixed, I will be able to visit and attend the festival once again.