Halloween

I never realized the oddness of the western excitement over Halloween until I moved to Malawi. 

I get invited to a Halloween party at a Canadian expat’s home and excitedly accept the invitation. My excitement soon turns to a mild panic over my lack of a costume. I end up using a water bottle to hold my hair up straight over my head, put on a beige dress and duct-tape some yellow shiny tampon wrappers together and stick them on my belly button. 

Voila! A yellow treasure troll a la 1980s. I cab to the party with 3 other girls in makeshift costumes – xena warrior princess, a tiger (think headband with paper ears and a paper tail) and the ‘wrong season’ (decked out in Christmas paraphernalia). I realize how odd locals think we must be when the taxi driver doesn’t even notice that we are dressed in ridiculous costumes. The party turns out to be a blast, a mish-mash of expats and wealthy locals in make-shift costumes, we chat and dance late into the night and I arrive home as the sun is rising. 

The bride of frankenstein sported the same 'do!