The children here had only seen the movie and television version of Halloween in the United States of America- scary, frightening images of violence and death, mass murderers and such. boo hiss!
I wanted to do what I could redeem the holiday (and the US image a little) and give the children some fun. There haven't been any parties or holidays since I have been here, so I decided to use Halloween to get some FUN started. yippeee!
Once I had this “great” brainstorm of re-creating a “healthy”
Halloween (with candy and sweets and chips and juice of course) of good clean fun for the children, the next step was implementing
it. I decided since there would be no one here in the neighborhood ready to receive
trick or treaters, we should do a “reverse” trick or treat. That meant treat bags for each of the
neighbors.
Remember, there are no Halloween stores here. There are no party stores here. There are no craft stores here. And unfortunately for my brainstorm, I am not Martha Stewart. But we try!
One week before Halloween- Luckily this brainstorm came while
I had transportation to Otjiwarango- I bought as much candy as I could
transport with groceries hoping it would be enough for everyone. I also bought flour, sugar, vanilla, baking
soda and cupcake papers.
Monday before Halloween- Next step: the bags. I looked- there are no nice little gift bags
and no Halloween or orange wrapping paper available within 200 miles; so time
to get creative. Using a stapler and the
paper from the printer, and either 1) the few origami skills I have (apologies
to all those people who tried to teach me), or 2) the box making skills I got
one summer working in an automobile and truck parts factory, I made little gift
bag/boxes.
The children really got in the spirit of reverse trick or
treating and making treats for others.
They took the crayons and colored pencils from Sunday school and went to
work drawing ghosts, bats, spiders, monsters, jack-o-lanterns, witches, and
black cats (the books are inside them to make a flat drawing surface- once I made them I didn't dare take them apart to color on them!). We made 31 of them and they did a great job!
Then they got to create Dr. Frankenstein’s
monster. Each child pulled a body part
(on paper) out of a cup and then they got to draw it. I used it as a little lesson on one body,
many parts… the Apostle Paul would either be proud or shudder. They also got to draw their own entry of a
jack-o-lantern for the pumpkin carving contest.
Clockwise from left: Geraldo 9, Cyrill 5, Sharifa 8, William 12
Tuesday before Halloween- we baked, frosted and decorated cupcakes with sprinkles from scratch. First I had to go all over the neighborhood and find eggs- forgot to buy them in Otjiwarango and mine were quite- well let’s just say dead. (NOOOOT MARTHA!)
My baker boys, aren't they handsome??!
Wednesday before Halloween- The children they put the candy
in the gift bags. In true assembly line
fashion, (with no arguing!) making sure each one got the right number of
pieces. And they only asked once if they
could eat them now! Then we spent time
making costumes. For the butterfly-
antenna, for the princess a crown and scepter, for the Green Lantern a ring,
symbol for his t-shirt and lantern, and for the lion, ears and a tail.
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