Halloween Oct. 2012


Halloween is a new but not foreign concept to the students that we help teach in the free English classes in Chuburna. While most of the students are young, school-aged, we have a few who are parents and grandmothers. (All of the elder students are females.)

 Halloween occurs just a day before Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a very important and mostly religious celebration of those who have died. More about that in another Missive. The Norte Americanos’ celebration around the same time allows the students to thoroughly enjoy the foolishness of Halloween, the anticipation of being scared and in creating some sort of costume.

 In the classes leading up to Halloween we introduce English Halloween words—pumpkin (calabaza), ghost (fantasma), skeleton (esqueleto), witch (bruja) and the very important phrase: Trick or Treat (Truco o Dulces). The latter is needed because on a special night close to actual Halloween, but not on it due to a clash with religious services surrounding Dia de los Muertos, we take the students trick or treating at the homes of volunteer Gringos.

We gather at the church after dark and the kids bumble into the gathered Gringo vehicles. This year seven cars drove in various waves to the 15 homes. Dee, green-skinned and scary as she was, managed to have a carload of students by the time she arrived here.

 

I had the porch lights off, eerie Halloween music up loud on the computer (Internet radio station), a candle-lit coconut “head” sitting on a table beside the front door, which was closed.  The kids inched up onto the porch. “Trick or treat” they said, as best they could. The door remained closed. They stood in the candle-lit darkness.

 After a sufficient pause I flicked on the lights, ripped open the door and pounced out at them with growl. My blonde wig, blackened lips and eyes, half-mask of a long, warted nose and crouched gait sent them screaming backwards. Oh, what joy!!!

 At another house the kids were frightened by a “ghost” that flew past them as they approached the door. The “ghost” had been mounted on a zip-line so that it came at them. Another Gringo had a “bloody head” lying on a table. It had been “severed” with a machete. Amazing what a well-carved calabaza will do to scare someone who hasn’t seen one.

 Everyone had a wonderful time. Next up is Christmas caroling for the Gringos door-to-door.

Sunny Snow, our neighbor and the head of the Chuburna Free English School.



The skeleton is Dorothy Kaytor, a Canadian Gringo.