By Alexandra Nicolas
news@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. —
For the Phan family, zip ties are essential for staying cool at the Marian Days festival.
“You tie the edges of the tarp to your tent poles, and it keeps the cool in much better,” said Carly Phan as she was setting up a small, portable air conditioner for her family’s tent and open-air canopy.
With temperatures forecast to hit highs in the 90s through the weekend, keeping cool likely will be a priority for most of the 60,000 Catholics of Vietnamese descent converging on the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix campus to camp for the annual Marian Days festival. Attendees come from across the United States and from several foreign countries.
The CMC campus has transformed into a tent city, with some participants bringing portable air conditioners and others relying on the shade of canopies strung from treetops.
Phan said her family has been air-conditioning its tent for the past couple of years since spending one year “dripping” for the whole festival.
“It’s much more fun when you’re not so hot all the time, when you’re not so tired,” she said.
Linda Tran and her family have been coming to Marian Days for 10 years, and they are drinking water and eating fresh fruit to stay cool. They didn’t bring their own climate control.
“That’s not really camping,” she said.
Thomas Thong Nguyen and his family set up their tents under a shade tree in the yard of a home neighboring the CMC campus. They also brought water and will be using box fans to cool their campsite.
“We know it’s very hot, and I think I can go with it,” Nguyen said. “The children could have problems if they don’t drink enough water.”
And while the death of a 61-year-old attendee was reported this week, Jasper County Coroner Rob Chappel said it was not heat-related.
Among the many tents were people wearing broad-rimmed hats or headbands wrapped around ice cubes, and using brightly colored traditional hand fans.
Event organizers have set up cooling stations and are providing ice and water, though many people bring their own bottled water — by the case.
With so many campsites using power to keep cool, the Carthage Water & Electric Plant used to provide additional hardware to the CMC. Chuck Bryant, electric superintendent for the city utility, said the CMC hasn’t needed its help this year or last.
“They’ve made a lot of upgrades internally,” he said. “They’ve got a pretty sophisticated system out there now.”
Many of those camping are plugged into that system, which has outlets in the campus streetlights.
Though the festival primarily is a religious event, it also serves as a reunion for Vietnamese refugees who came to the United States after the fall of Saigon, and their descendants and others. It also has become a cultural event, with an array of ethnic food vendors.
The festival officially begins today and runs through Sunday. People have been setting up tents and campers since the weekend, braving the temperatures for a good spot on the grounds.
“A few days, and you get used to (the heat),” Phan said. “It won’t be that bad. Everyone is here early, so it can’t be so awful. It would take much worse than this.”
Festival history
Marian Days is a religious and social gathering that began in 1977 as a means for priests of the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix order to give thanks. The priests, an order of Vietnamese monks, had settled in Carthage at the former seminary after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The first festival attracted 200 people.
