On our best days All Around This World welcomes kids to class during the South and Central Asian season with, “Ilelele,” a rollicking east Indian welcome song — specifically from Assam, a far eastern state of India. We first heard on the Smithsonian Folkways recording, “Songs of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and the Andamans” (listed as “Abor No. 4”). According to the album’s liner notes the song “is usually sung on occasions when some guests are received by the village folk,” and summarizes the lyrics like this: “Many people from outside are our guests this evening. The people of our village have also gathered. So you girls should now sing loudly and entertain the assembly here with whatever music they want to hear.” This video is a treat — the Sand Family band performing the song at the Wild Rose, Wisconsin, public library in 2018.
We are revising the AllAroundThisWorld.com site — the information you’re seeking may still be here, but a lot of links are broken and details may be out of date. We are currently using a new (better!) site — ExploreEverywhere.com — to tell you all about our class offerings, our “pen pal” program and how to become one of our teachers, and will eventually be moving all the goodies from here over to there. So, GO TO THE NEW SITE!
