Halloween 2010

Halloween in Iquitos has come and gone. Halloween is not quite the spectacle in Iquitos the way it is in Lima or in the U.S. So while most of the children in the Air Force Villa dressed up and made there way around collecting candy, there weren´t any adults dressed up. But being the Gringa that I am, I couldn´t let another Halloween go by without wearing a costume, so I wore one. The trick or treaters that came to the house liked my costume and that made dressing up, worth it. Alot of my students came by the house. Here I am with a few of them.

There isn´t exactly a costume store in Iquitos, but I usually tend to make my own anyways (and they usually tend to invlolve cardboard). So I didn´t have much to work with but I was able to throw together a superhero costume and I called myself ¨Super Gringa.¨ The costume may have been last minute, but at least I got alot of laughs. (There was a homemade cape too).

Coco´s costume was also last minute. Originally we were going for cowboy, but in the end he looked more like an australian cowboy farmer guy.

Here´s how Coco decorated the front of the house. We found pumpkins again, not an easy thing to find in the Amazon. We were lucky enough to find them in the same location of the marketplace that we found them last year.

Eventually we had alot of kids show up at the house and it felt like a hurricane each time a new batch would come. And here they don´t say ¨trick or treat.¨ Instead they literally say in English ¨Happy Halloween.¨ And then you give them their hard-earned candy.

Eventually we made it to a small gathering at a friends house, where Coco and I were the only ones dressed up, but people appreciated our effort. And we gifted our friends with one of our pumpkins and they proudly displayed it on their driveway. Next year I think an organized costume party is in order.