So I've now had my second holiday in Swaziland… Halloween! Just like I celebrated 4th of July (read it here), I went all out for this holiday as well. The benefits of having my American friend and closest PCV being only 15 minutes away, means that whenever I want to act like an American, I can just take a quick khumbi over to see her. Prior to Oct. 31, I ate all the candy corn my mom sent me, I've been drinking my pumpkin spice Starbucks coffee, and I watched the Halloween classic "Hocus Pocus". And despite being Spring here, the weather this past week has felt like Fall weather back in the states. I couldn't be more happy!
After prepping for the holiday I was ready for Halloween; sadly however, no one here celebrates it. So I wore my orange and black to school with only myself knowing the significance of the colors. I animatedly exclaimed "Happy Halloween!" to my students with them responding in "sooooo?" My little girls came to the house without any costumes and I had to prompt them to at least return with a knock on the door saying "Trick or Treat". After years of being excited for this day due to my niece and nephews, I was ready to go see Thoko (my PCV friend) and get my Halloween on.
Turns out Halloween was not lost after all! Thoko's kids knew exactly what to do. She had over 20 kids come over and knocked on the door for candy. We then went for a walk at night to the sitolo to get ingredients for the cookies being made later when I ran into "Kanye West". I wasn't planning on doing any costumes, but I ended up being his Kim Kardashian. Back at the house, Thoko and I came up with the idea of melting the left over Halloween candy to make caramel apples. The idea was right, but the end result was poorly executed. The toffee was colored black and when mixed with my brown caramels made it look gross, but since it Halloween, it worked. Too bad it tasted horrible.
Thanks to my mom, Betty Crocker, and Thoko's oven, I was able to make the pumpkin spice cookies, which eventually ended up as a cake because we forgot to take the pan out when we preheated the oven. When we stuck the fork in the cake to see if it was done, it took a big chunk out of the middle. IDEA! We decided to make a face in the pan of cake/cookie and within moments, my Halloween was complete—I had carved a pumpkin face, kind of. To top this evening off, we watched Harry Potter 1. Now the rest of my week will be spent watching the rest of the HP movies… thanks Thoko.
Next up: Thanksgiving din din at Thoko's.
Happy November!
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