WELLS — It wasn’t New Orleans, but that’s what the scene said at Wells Junior High School March 4 ”“ also known as Fat Tuesday, when seventh- and eighth-grade French and Spanish students paraded through the halls of the school, celebrating Mardi Gras.

Strolling to the beat of recorded music while wearing festive masks, parade revelers greeted and handed out candy to other students who came out of class temporarily to line the “parade” route.

The event, along with several other coordinated festivities such as Day of the Dead at Halloween, are annual celebrations planned by the foreign language department to reinforce student awareness of the cultures they study.

According to French teacher Beth Cilluffo, learning a foreign language is not just about learning how to speak it, but also learning about the customs and cultures of those countries.

Mardi Gras, which is French for “fat Tuesday,” has been observed in various ways in French- and Spanish-speaking countries and other places throughout the globe for several hundred years. It is usually held on the day before the start of the Lenten season and includes parties, music, food and parades.

According to Cilluffo, most of the masks worn in the school’s parade were made in class. Some, depending upon the material used, took a few weeks to complete. Along with creating the masks, students learned about the roots of Mardi Gras and where it is celebrated. The wearing of a mask for Mardi Gras essentially provided anonymity for the wearer and allowed social classes to mix.

Some masks for Mardi Gras are elongated with a beak, which Cilluffo said dates back to the plague years of medieval Venice, when doctors wore masks filled with herbs and other substances in the nose of the mask to ward off the plague.