The Nias cultural festival, the Ya’ahowu Festival, is again held. This time, the city of Gunungsitoli as host of the organizers. The event was held from Thursday afternoon (23/11/2017) to Sunday night (11/26/2017).

Ya’ahowu party is centered in two places, namely Taman Ya’ahowu and Lapangan Merdeka Gunungsitoli.

This tourism promotion activity was opened in Taman Ya’ahowu by the Secretary of Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Agus Purwoto. The opening begins with a cultural parade by a contingent of four districts and one city in the Nias Islands.

Agus Purwoto in his direction hopes, local governments work together to prepare all the infrastructure and facilities of a tourist destination areas, including the provision of quality human resources.

“So that later can be successful, bring prosperity for the community, and to host the country itself,” he said.

Furthermore, Agus was accompanied by regional heads in Nias Islands, an element of the Regional Leadership Communication Forum (Forkompida), and other honorable guests fired the “Fondrako”.

Fondrako is a Nias term, meaning the sign / marker of the opening of an “Owasa” (big feast) by a Balugu (customary head).

The event was then followed by various artistic attractions, such as Folaya Ba Gowasa Dance, Tuwu Dance, Maluaya Dance, Nias traditional music performance, Sosiodrama Fanaru Fakhe, and Hombo (jump) Batu.

Earlier, at around 10:00 am, Vice Mayor of Gunungsitoli Sowa’a Laoli opened the exhibition of regional superior products and unique culinary of Nias at Lapangan Merdeka Gunungsitoli.

“The number of booths that stood at the exhibition site indicates the high interest of the community, especially the business actors, to take part in this activity,” said Sowa’a in his speech.

He hopes the implementation of this exhibition can be a momentum of increasing competitiveness for superior products and culinary typical of Nias. He also invites the community and visitors to participate in maintaining the comfort and cleanliness of the exhibition area.

After it was opened, Vice Mayor of Gunungsitoli together with the Forkompida element who was present at that time directly mingled among the hundreds of visitors who had packed the exhibition.

Superior products are exhibited between agricultural products, marine aquaculture and freshwater, handicraft souvenirs, traditional musical instruments. There is also an exhibition of defense equipment from Kodim 0213 / Nias.

The article has been aired on Pesona.Travel