We celebrated Halloween in my village on Wednesday. It was a belated Halloween put on hold
until Tabaski celebrations ended a week after the holiday began. I was fortunate to have two special
guests – Blaire and Jennie – two study abroad students living in Dakar who
spent the week with me.
I had told my family the previous day that we would be
celebrating an American holiday, but I refused to give them any details. Wednesday, after lunch, the festivities
began by us dressing up in costume.
It was difficult to determine costume ideas so that they would be
recognizable by my village, but we managed. I decided to dress as a tree; I attached branches and leaves
throughout my body, wore a green shirt, and a brown skirt. Jennie dressed as a cat and Blaire
dressed as a duck. After donning
our outfits behind closed doors, we burst out of the room, yelling “Happy
Halloween!” We were greeted by
complete silence; no one knew how to react to our weird dress. But I explained what we were, and they
all understood. Soon they were
referring to our relatives: fellow trees, ducks, and cats that they spied
outside. We also all danced
around, trying to dance like the object we were dressed as. They all got a kick out of that. Throughout the day, I kept telling
people “Xamuma Aida; garab u cassia laa” (I don’t know Aida; I am neem tree.)
Phase 1 of Halloween complete, we went behind closed doors
again to begin phase 2. I had
bought a squash for the occasion.
I had debated this decision for awhile, not wanting to waste food in a
country where hunger and malnutrition are commonplace; ultimately, I determined
that it would add to the festivities, and a large squash was only 200 cfa (less
than 50 cents) which hints at how prolific they are. (Nevertheless, my family did comment later on how orange the
inside of the squash was, implying that it would be delicious to eat, but now I
had wasted it.) We cut the top off
and gutted it inside, saving the seeds to eat for dinner. We then pranced outside carrying the
hollow squash and a knife. The
three of us carved a face in the pumpkin, watched closely by all the children. They huddled really close to us,
curious as to exactly what we were doing and not wanting to miss any step of
it. Needing to feel involved, some
adults gave us tips on how to carve best and tried to help. But everyone got a kick out of the
squash with a human face and especially liked it when we placed a candle in it
at night.
Now we moved onto phase 3 of Halloween: reverse
trick-or-treating. With the door
wide open for everyone to see inside my room, we began to make cookies. We made delicious no-bake peanut butter
oatmeal cookies. Dozens of pairs
of adult and child eyes watched eagerly as we mixed the ingredients in a pot on
my gas stove (a large gas canister, like a car-camping stove). They were all seated on two benches
outside or on the cement slabs curious as to what we could be concocting. They eagerly saw us drop the formed
cookies onto trays to cool down and stayed even after we told them we’d have to
wait a bit before they could eat them.
But, it was now time for juice – a big treat in the village. We made about 4 liters of mango juice
and began passing it out to adults and kids alike. At first, the kids were taken by surprise that they were
included in the festivities since usually only the adults are given these
treats, but they were so happy.
They also waited patiently as we passed the cups around, serving 7
people at a time and then returning to my room to fill up again, before serving
another 7 people. We served
everyone sitting in my compound, all the random wanderers who came to see what
the commotion was about, and my few neighboring compounds. The juice finished, we then began to pass
around the cookies. Everyone was
astounded by the taste of these cookies, and we happily passed them out to
about 100 people (saving some for ourselves, of course).
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