All Hallows Eve

Conveniently, our 3 month in service conference Reconnect was scheduled for the week following Halloween weekend. So of course almost all the volunteers from our training group arrived on Friday to celebrate Halloween in Antigua. I had grand plans to be Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, playing up the fact that I live in the department of TOTOnicapan, and we’re certainly not in Kansas anymore. BUT, due to lack of funds/time and the scarcity of blue gingham dresses in Guatemala, it just didn’t come to together. So I had probably the most boring and obvious costume of my life—a witch (especially because I am a person who prides herself on the resourcefulness and creativity of her Halloween costumes). My parents had mailed me a simple, renaissance-style black dress that I had bought in Boston and I had just bought rather unattractive and orthopedic-like black shoes to wear to my students’ graduation that could be sort of witchy-ish. And because the city of Antigua is centered on the needs and desires of travelers (NOT Guatemalans, who generally don’t celebrate Halloween, as the general belief is that its devil-worship) I was able to find a witch’s hat… and fishnet stockings, just to make it slightly less boring.

But I guess if you’re ever going to go classic Halloween, it should be in Guatemala, where the very act of celebrating Halloween is rebellious and unorthodox. In the afternoon in one of the camionetas I saw a flier that had a picture of a witch flying on a broomstick with a circle and cross through it (like the non-smoking pictures), beside a picture of saintly Jesus. The print said, “Say yes to Dios, Say NO to Halloween.” I would have liked to keep it as a souvenir but I don’t think the driver would have appreciated that.

It was a fun night. Some of the costumes were much more impressive than mine, such as my friend Aliyya who wore nothing more than a costal (a plastic woven shopping bag) and my friend Amanda who was a very charming flapper girl. The biggest hit was probably Kelsey, who went as an “ayudante”, the men who collect the fares on the buses. She did an impressive impersonation of the ayudantes who frequently lift their shirts to rub their bellies and obnoxiously shout out the names of the buses destinations (“Chimal!Chimal!”) while rapidly waving their hand. Mostly it was good to “reconnect” with all the people from my training group, many of whom I hadn’t seen in 2 months. And obvious though my costume was, there was scarcely another witch in sight and I did get several compliments (even, “the cutest witch I’ve ever seen”).