african halloween

african halloween

there is no african halloween, though i did read about something in south africa.

but i love it. it is my favorite, and by god i am going to make it happen. 
"sweet", shangala bangala, and shy

i spent all my time preparing the decorations, so didn't have a lot of time to work on my own costume, which was a bit uninspired.  i had visions of grandeur as a frozen kili hiker, a chewn up safari camper, etc. but when i saw an adorable broom for only 800shilingi and a real sickle for only 2,000, i decided to go with the tried and true witchie poo.  haven't done that since i was about 5 yrs old. but in africa, where everything is a mystery, it was very impressive (and got bloodier as the night wore on, thanks to my home made blood!).  rose, our housekeeper and her daughter angela were very confused by my tossing out the best part of pumpkins. and pauli, our gardener thought the shrunken heads were funny--or at least he was laughing a lot--but did not think my witch outfit very nice.  kichwa kubwa!! mbaya hapana nzuri! (big head. bad. not attractive.- thank you pauli.)

then it was off to dada meghan for some serious decorating.  the decorations were mostly due to guido's indulgence, carting fake spider webs and some glow in the dark cheesy skeletons across the atlantic and to terry's joy of buying every strange thing that comes through the 2nd hand market-- but also due to my genius and perseverance and my willing slave evelyn.

rafiki evy is very scared

after dragging over all my supplies, jackolanterns and shrunken heads, we hung webs and ghosts, cut out bats, threw the funny "boo" tshirts and random costume pieces around. we even made popcorn, bad punch, and cheap candy--oh and the ridiculously good cookies from meghans kitchen.

suspiciously looking like one of the most important mzee at kcmc... mother was so proud
meanwhile, i seemed to think witches like to "grr"

i was most impressed by everyone's genius costumes.  several witch drs, some mummies, some bad puns, some nearly 7' tall school boys, terrorists with strapped on workable bombs, goddesses, wizards, even mr. president bill clinton, to name a few
they grow up so fast!

luckily no one was hurt in the process of this partying

--everyone made my evening. i only wish all my friends had been in town for it!

it is off to tarangarie for the rest of the weekend. one last dash in the bush before absconding from my african dreams.