Tag: SA culture

looking back, this year’s halloween most definitely deserves another post. it was, after all, the first time that i “did” halloween the way Americans do.

you see, halloween was not very popular in SA when i was growing up. quite the contrary, in fact. not that ghosts and witches weren’t fun – we did have haunted carnival rides and even played “haunted house” at school events. just never on the 31st of october. i suppose some grown-ups in the bigger cities might have had a party, but i don’t recall caring much about that as a youngster.

in fact, i only started enjoying halloween in my university years – and i had quite a few of those ;0)

remember, i only ‘discovered’ booze on my 19th birthday. (of course i knew about wine and liquor before – i just didn’t like it.) but on my 19th birthday i discovered i DID like the bubbly! quite a bit. so much so that, much like any other student, most of my free time was spent finding a reason to party. life was all about having fun and getting drunk. add to that the opportunity to dress up and be as weird as you care to be… you get the idea.

any party was an excuse to drink copious amounts of whatever had some kick in it. strangely enough, most people were more fun in costume (out of character) – or, in my case, in drag! back then, we had more fancy dress parties than anything else!

when i switched from studying Town- and regional Planning to a degree in Interior Design – one of my closest friends had the fortune of celebrating her birthday on November 1st. Halloween party PLUS birthday after midnight… instant success!

so yeah, that’s pretty much what halloween was all about for me and my friends: getting.wasted.

carving pumpkins was something americans did – who knew why or what for? messy for sure.
trick-or-treating? sounds like playing “tok-tokkie”, without running away before someone opened the door – and what’s the fun in that?

tok-tok·kie [ tòk tókee ] (plural tok-tok·kies) noun  South Africa Definition: 1. insects African beetle: an African beetle that makes a characteristic sound by tapping its abdomen on the ground to attract a mate. Family Tenebrionidae. 2. leisure children’s game involving knocking on doors: a children’s game or trick of knocking on somebody’s door and then running away before it can be answered.

 ———————————————————

fast forward to last week.
i’m working in an American school, with real Americans, in a culture that practically worships everything about the United States.

my kids want to carve pumpkins. the school actually set aside class time for this. these carved pumpkins go on display for the school’s only “event”: the Halloween party.

being the only outside event that our school has – it is THE moment to dazzle and beguile. suddenly, our costumes are seriously important. the show is for awing kids and parents alike – which is great PR for the school, which means new students, which means business.
then there’s also the after-party…
yes, there’s an after-party in town, where throngs of foreigners get together for the “best outfit” competition. not only are the prizes pretty cool – but there’s a bit of prestige to it. and apparently our school always wins one of the three categories. (no pressure)

so… carving the pumpkin was nerve wrecking. although i’d read up on carving templates and techniques beforehand, i was seriously feeling the pressure when i walked through the front door that morning. my concerns about carving a decent pumpkin, however, were overshadowed by the fear of slipping and hurting a student. kids, as you well know, loose all sense of caution when curiosity takes over. i ended up barking “too close!” more often than plunging the knife into the (resistant) pumpkin. i was sweating bullets. (or balls, as my colleagues put it.)

thankfully the pumpkin emerged looking pretty decent, without any blood being spilt.

next up was the party itself – and i had no idea how i was going to pull off a “genuine” halloween costume (or perform a quick ditty on stage). all i had to do at my previous school was scare the living daylights out of everybody!

i ended up sticking to what i knew best – and went as a zombie. my theatrical flair ended up being a bit TOO scary – and i had to loose the bloodied mouth and throat. the white contact lenses, however, couldn’t be made less scary. unless i took them out. which i didn’t, seeing as how i’d painted my whole body. (there was no way i was going to stick a painted finger in my eye!)

during the night’s activities, i managed to perspire myself into lighter and lighter shades of blue as i went along. so much so, that i had to turn to the art-supplies of my manager for some additional blue poster paint.

for the stage-show i merely hopped around the way chinese zombies are supposed to – which drew a great response from both the crowd and management.

then we headed for the after-party. i squeezed out too much paint for my last application, but decided to bite the bullet and use it all. worked like a charm! i visibly scared the sh!t out of people on the way to the bar – and at the bar itself. success!! i didn’t enter the competition in the end – but my boss won best dressed male.
he went as marilyn monroe.

(mahat maghandi came second. obviously spelling ability was not a prerequisite.)