50th Anniversary of Yap Day, Feb 28-Mar 2, 2018

February 28 was the first of three days of the 50th Anniversary of Yap Day, an annual celebration of the culture and traditions of this remote Pacific island. Although it attracts visitors to the island, Yap Day is by Yapese for Yapese. Booths and demonstrations, food and traditional dances, games and speeches and welcomes to the Ambassadors of the U.S., Japan and Australia were staged at Makiy in Gagil, a municipality on the northern end of the island near the site of an ancient Stone Money Bank that has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the last day the festivities moved to Colonia, the only town on the island, where the Living History Museum was the site of more events. Here are a few photos of the festivities that included traditional dances; a parade of floats hand-crafted atop flatbed trucks by the various municipalities; craft demonstrations; local food; games and races that included climbing a betel nut tree, grabbing a flag at the top, shimmying down and racing to the finish line; a tug of war between a team of foreign visitors and residents and local men in their traditional thu'us (the local men won when the women stepped in and started tugging, their grass skirts swishing; a raft race for young boys on the lagoon; and a race between women from the starting line to the finish line where they picked up strands of palm fronds and wove a small, square box; and dances by the Filipino students that was a crowd favorite.