Bele Chere

This weekend was a whirlwind of a lot of nothing. I volunteered to work at Bele Chere.I signed up like two months ago and for whatever reason, they felt they shouldn’t contact me until a couple of weeks ago. Previously they let me know they got the email and there was a meeting so I could get a quick lesson in understanding what was going on. I got nothing. So when my husband got word about a horse show he was  to work in I sat wondering if I was supposed to be at Bele Chere and when I was supposed to be there. See the horse show the hubs gets paid for, and paid nicely. So that is something we have to accommodate for. Needless to say I was surprised and irritated at an email arriving to me with my volunteer schedule about 10 days before festival time.

The festival itself can be a lot of fun. I used to go when a specific band used to come. They were never at a main stage, always some side street and oh em gee they were wonderful. The band was called Runa Pacha. I have no idea why they no longer come back, they were amazing! Anywho they were the only reason I used to go. Two years ago I volunteered when the girls’ day camp director asked me to. I worked in the children’s area. I ended up doing face painting, not exactly a specialty of mine. But it was busy and they were short. I got this one super sweet boy. I remember he asked me something, what it was I don’t remember. I just remember telling him he would have to ask his mom and dad. He stared at me in that innocent, but very matter of fact way, and said “my mom died when I was a baby”. Yea. What the hell do you say to that?? I mean, I know I couldn’t possibly know but it tore my heart out. His dad ended up coming over and talking to me which was awesome but man did I feel like a big pile of dog poo. So I hadn’t had a desire to work with kids’ again. Plus I am not a very patient person.

This year I worked the info booth. Well for a day. See they put me in the heart of downtown and there was no shade from the sun. And it was hot. I went through my water quickly and as busy as we were I could only sip through it when no one was around talking to me. Most people that came up were super nice. One guy actually asked me “I am looking for a performer who wears a hat and plays the guitar”. I stared for a second hoping for more information then asked if he had a name to go with the description. Man replied no. I said “well, I am sorry. I have no idea who that is”. He goes “Oh well I am sorry, I thought this was the info booth”. By now I am sweating enough for 4 people and out of my first round of water, which means I am cranky. So I said “Well I am sorry you think I know details about the hundreds of performers and hundreds of vendors”. He glared. Oh well. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. I can’t believe he didn’t think that it might be a crazy request for me to magically know. My favorite part of the day was when our Westboro Church Wannabe’s showed up. I knew they were coming. And I felt the urge to wear my ankh, my pentacle ring, and my moon earrings. If I wasn’t required to wear a volunteer tee shirt, I would have been wearing my Pagan Mom Blog tee shirt. So since I didn’t really stand out and the crowd blocked me and the preacher…..I was spared his personal attacks. The hilarious part was a street performer was sharing the same space. She was a drummer and did this mime sort of thing. She only performed when people put money into her bucket. When she came back from her break to find these WBC Wannabe’s she immediately set up. One person put some money in her bucket right at the time the preacher was going at it with the bullhorn. She over powered him and drowned him out. It was hilarious because immediately 4 people ran up to put more money into her bucket. She was a smart girl. She probably made more money during the time they were there then the time before they showed up. That is capitalism at it’s finest!

Oh and I almost forgot about the beer woman. The beer woman cracked me up. She complained to us about the smell of beer. She actually said “all these people complain about cigarette smoke but all I can smell is beer AND IT’S DISGUSTING!’ She then proceeded to tell me that we should do something about it. Yea. Like I am going to tell 3000 people around the booth to stop drinking beer. Uh huh. Hold your breath lady. Bele Chere has always been a drinking festival. And Asheville is known as Beer City. Yea, they don’t have beer on Sunday but still…….people go for the beer and music. So if you are not a fan of beer drinking, smelling beer, and public drunkeness Bele Chere is not the place to be.

I wish I had gotten pictures but my phone was dying and I was slammed. I got off at 8:30 and headed out to get Kyle and Molly. Other two went to inlaws for the night. I had dinner with them at the horse show, big bbq dinner. I couldn’t finish it. We got home by 11:30pm and I had to have them back the next morning so I could work another shift at Bele Chere. That ended up not happening. Overnight I got amazingly nauseous and  extremely hot. By morning I ached all over. Someone could breathe near me and I moaned in pain. I got up long enough to take Kyle and Molly back to the horse show, came home, and promptly vomited. Not a nice mental picture but it felt really good. I figured I had heat exhaustion and decided not to bother going back. Wouldn’t do any good to be stuck in a little booth making myself ill. I thought I had kept myself well hydrated but looking back I could see that we were so busy I didn’t have time to drink water like I should have been. And I am one of those people that can’t be “rude” and drink water while someone is talking to me. It’s not that i didn’t drink either, I went through 2 bottles and a giant bottle of water that I had brought with me. I just apparently needed more. Or be out of the sun.

Anywho I will probably not volunteer next year. I might take the eldest, not sure. The kids area isn’t a place I like venturing into and the other two probably wouldn’t enjoy walking the hot streets looking at booths. As they get older we will probably go down and watch the music.