The ThunderBlogs

The breeze that on a Saturday afternoon swayed the rainbow flags in Vancouver’s West End, carried with it a diverse melody of sounds including the gravel-scratching of a drag-queen’s roller blades, the neighing of ponies and the rhythm of drums.

Stepping into the enclosed area starting at Davie Street from Burrard and ending at Broughton, one could sense the buzz of activity that characterized the seventh annual Davie Day street-festival.
Children squealed when offered cotton-candy and dogs of all sizes wagged their tails as they were luxuriously groomed.

In true West End fashion, the festival catered to the diversity of the neighborhood’s inhabitants and visitors.
People from different generations, ethnicities and sexual orientations walked shoulder-to-shoulder through a display of over a 100 vendors and numerous performances.

Two men wearing matching green shirts walked hand in hand, stopping to stare at the horses that stood amidst a historical rendition of the area. A drag-queen in roller blades whizzed through the crowd, stopping occasionally to greet friends and strangers with shared enthusiasm. Her platinum blond hair swung in the wind and her short black skirt swayed with the effort of her legs.

An older woman in a wheelchair stopped at a stall selling food and asked about the dishes from an African woman whose hair was covered with the bright colours of Ghana’s flag. At the same moment, a young man wearing a leather jacket and a backpack walked by.As he stepped away you could see his little dog staring out from the backpack’s open flap, excited with black eyes that glittered in the sunlight.

At Burrard, a main-stage dominated the view, with green benches put out for the audience in front of the Davie Village Community Garden. Artist Bill Monroe, dressed in a black sequined dress, brought the crowd to their feet with impromptu renditions of favorites ‘Razzle Dazzle’ and ‘I Will Survive.’“We’re going to survive here in BC, no matter what, no matter HST or PST or the Volcano, or God knows what, Vancouver’s Davie Street will be here with all you wonderful people,” he said to the crowd, resulting in an explosion of cheering and clapping.

“It’s easy sometimes to forget that not all places in the world are as accepting and as diverse as Vancouver,” said Samantha Meade a 23 student from UBC. “Days like this bring all the diversity out in the open, and we remember that what we have should never be taken for granted even if it was we are now accustomed to.”