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By

David Ferrara

November 22, 2009, 9:45AM

(Press-Register/Victor Calhoun)Shaun Hughes, 6, enjoys a snowcone Saturday from the El Salvador booth at the Mobile International Festival. The theme of the event, which is held in the Mobile Civic Center, this year was “The World in Musical Harmony.”     MOBILE, Ala. — One moment, a small parade of Jamaicans shuffled through the corridors of the Mobile Civic Center on Saturday, singing and slapping steel drums.

    The next, only a few paces away, an impromptu Scottish group broke into an accordion version of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” proudly clapping, foot stomping and kilt wearing.

    This weekend, thousands traveled around the globe without leaving the city limits for the 26th annual Mobile International Festival.

    “They’re learning about their genealogy and the world around them,” said Walt Lonnborg, a member of the Highlands and Islands Association of Celtic Gatherings in Gulfport. “I see it as being very educational and a lot of fun.”

    More than 70 countries were represented at this year’s three-day festival, which wrapped up Saturday. The event drew as many as 13,000 people Thursday and Friday, and Saturday’s attendance was expected to reach about 7,000, according to Estela Dorn, the executive director of the festival.

    As people rushed past carrying trinkets and apparel from around the globe, Sharon Reed, of Mobile, watched her daughter, Joyelle Reed, receive a temporary tattoo along her arm at the India exhibit.

    Someone asked if the tattoo would wash off before church.

View full size(Press-Register/Victor Calhoun)The Brazil RX4 Steel Orchestra from Trinidad and Tobago performs Saturday at the Mobile International Festival in the Mobile Civic Center.     “I have met the minimum requirements for the Catholic Church,” Joyelle Reed said. “The arms will be covered and the hands are clean.”

    Neither mother nor daughter have ever left the continent, but they have attended the festival for the past 10 years.

    “It gives you a chance to travel without the expenses and without some of the other problems you have with travel,” Sharon Reed said.

    Jyotsna Varma, a doctor at the University of South Alabama Children’s and Women’s Hospital, moved to the United States from India in the early 1990s, and soon after joined the festival.

    “I want to display my culture to the world,” Varma said. “This is an excellent platform to promote awareness in the community of Indian culture.”

    Indeed, the inter-continental atmosphere piqued curiosity: dozens lined up to have their names written in Japanese for 50 cents. And it created a bit of peculiarity in which a young man could wear a Vietnamese rice hat over his University of Alabama visor.

    Certainly, one could not ignore the fact that culture begets cuisine.

    The event is also known, to some, as Mobile’s International Food Festival, Dorn said.

    It offered perhaps the most diverse menu in Mobile. A glance at just some of the edibles: aush and dolmeh from Iran, empanadas from Argentina, tamales from El Salvador, samosa from India, rum carrot cake and rum raisin pudding from Jamaica, gyros and baklava from Greece, cheese wanton and fried rice from Indonesia, bratwurst and knackwurst from Germany and pollo frito from Puerto Rico.

    All of it was being cooked and munched on while a Spanish flamenco dancer twirled or Matsuriza taiko drummers from Japan performed on the arena stage.

    “The pride,” Dorn said, “is in everyone.”