The Festival of Friendship

WIP - Summer Camp 2023

This festival will get a much better title when I have worldbuilt the two cultures more.
The humans (Salahor People) of the island of Salahor and the merfolk of the Tchwachi tribe have enjoyed a friendly, mutually beneficial relationship for hundreds of years. This bond is celebrated annually in the summer months, in a week long celebration known as the festival of friendship.
During this week, the two peoples split their time between the beaches and the water. On the shore, people build sand sculptures and make mosaics out of shells and pebbles. In the sea, there are swimming races, though these are not usually interspecies due to the merfolks' innate advantages. People also build underwater sculptures out of whatever they can find.
At night along the shoreline, small fires are lit to cook food - mainly fish and other forms of sealife. Everyone sits on the sand and eats and talks. The people of Salahor and the Tchwachi both have high percentages of people that speak both their languages fluently. Stories are shared long into the night, as well as music and dancing.
On the last night, giant bonfires are lit on floating rafts covered in a non-flammable coating. These are anchored to the seabed with long ropes so they do not float away in the tide. Everyone gathers in the water surrounding these fires and together they wait for the sun to rise.
The true history of the festival is lost to time, but the story goes that the Tchwachi came to help the people of Salahor in a time of great hardship. When things were better again, the Salahor repaid the Tchwachi by throwing a great celebration, sharing in abundance and solidifying the friendship between the two cultures. This became an annual thing, and became over time a festival of cultural exchange, which is why art, music, and stories have become an integral part of the celebrations.