Halloween

We celebrated Halloween here in Bolivia as best we could. Bolivians seem to want to celebrate Halloween but just haven't gotten it right yet. It seems that the younger generation is trying to pick up the American traditions and some children get dressed up and go trick-or-treating. But many older Bolivians and Evangelicals I think just see it as an evil holiday and don't quite get it. The Latin American celebration of Day of the Dead on November 1st and 2nd overshadows Halloween. This holiday involves celebrating deceased loved ones and includes many interesting customs. There are different traditions in the city and in the country but it usually involves making the favorite food of your loved ones and a traditional corn-based drink and making a table for them or bringing the food to the graveyard. This is done with the belief that their spirit will come back on this day. There are many other traditions more common in the country such as building stairs or a swing with the belief that these will help the spirit up to heaven.

Anyway, we celebrated Halloween with the interns at the Hacienda and here are a couple pictures from the night.

I was a librarian and Matt was some sort of teacher or something. These costumes were definitely last minute as we came not dressed up then raided the ministry room for clothes to wear.

And Luka was a garbage can. Just kidding, this is when she got her head stuck in the top of the garbage can because she was digging through the trash...as usual.

While we do have a lot of pumpkins here because it is a common vegetable to eat, it's hard to get your hands on a whole pumpkin...so Kristin carved a watermelon.

We had a nice bon-fire at the fire pit.

And of course went trick-or-treating. But we went to the
gringo neighbors of the Hacienda just to be funny.