Some say Halloween is their favorite part of the year. Some say it means Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
Regardless of how people feel about Halloween, it is a time for frantically throwing together a last-minute outfit or putting on a well-prepared one with a satisfied grin.
It’s a time for breathing in the last whiffs of fall air, feeling the crunch of fallen leaves below your feet and drinking fall-themed drinks like there’s no tomorrow.
Halloween is time for Halloweekend, a non-stop three-day adventure of costume creations, partying and enjoying the last vestiges ?of fall.
At least, that’s Halloween at IU and probably in other parts of the United States ?as well.
Here in Chile, I was met with a completely different experience.
First of all, it’s hot.
There is no crispness in the air, only the hope of a budding spring. It was nice in the sense that I wouldn’t have to bundle up on my way to a party, and yet, I missed the fall atmosphere.
The day before Halloween, I set out with big hopes of finally being the token banana at the party. I set out to find a banana costume for what I was expecting would be a raging weekend here ?in Santiago.
From store to store I went, happily asking around for the oh-so popular banana costume.
After a while, I slowly started to realize that the banana costume is not a huge thing in Chile. Each time I asked, I was met with stranger and stranger looks. One man looked at me and said, “You want to be a ... banana?”
Disheartened, I ended up at a street vendor, where I purchased a creepy clown mask and Freddy Krueger glove. Not exactly a banana, but it was something.
I was amazed at the lack of costumes in big department stores such as Lider, Jumbo and Unimarc. They all had tiny sections filled with Halloween candy and empty racks where some children’s costumes had been.
The sad costume-shopping experience made me miss home a little, but it also provided me with a firsthand look at how people in another country celebrated a holiday I always thought was huge everywhere.
From what I observed, Chileans mostly catered to children for Halloween. Candy and children’s costumes were everywhere. Little princesses and youngsters dressed as Spider Man ran through the streets excitedly hunting for doors to pound on.
While some obviously celebrated Halloween, it was interesting to hear other viewpoints on the holiday as well.
At the beginning of my time here, I made friends with a woman named Zulma Haro Rubio and her daughter, Dayanita.
On Halloween, she wrote a Facebook status that read: “Recuerden Amigos del facebok, que Halloween es una fiesta satánica y que ante los Ojos de DIOS es malo no dejen que sus niños participen de eso espero k refeccionen ... Que Dios los vendiga y les de sabiduría y entendimiento ...”
In short (and English) she said Halloween is a satanic holiday, and before the eyes of God, it is bad and no one should let their children participate.
Several people agreed with her in the comments below, and I found the whole thing rather ?fascinating.
Zulma is Catholic and obviously feels very strongly about Halloween. I have family in the United States that are Catholic. Some of them celebrate Halloween while some of the others ?do not.
In my mind, Halloween is a time for dressing up, goofing around and eating a lot of candy. To others, however, Halloween is much more than that — it is a ?celebration of evil.
Taking into account this other side of the spectrum, I decided this was probably the reason Halloween wasn’t that huge here, seeing as 63 percent of Chile identifies as Catholic.
In the end, however, I was definitely not disappointed with my Halloweekend in Chile. I found the section of Santiago that celebrates it.
The place my friends and I ended up going to was completely decked out in Halloween garb.
Spiderwebs were laced around ceiling beams, skewered body parts (fake, I hope) hung above blood-soaked pots and creepy-crawly bugs lay scattered on the floor.
Finally, to my great surprise, there were Chileans and gringos alike around the room donning some of the most impressive ?costumes I’ve ever seen.
I danced the night away under a plethora of fog machines with werewolves, dead brides, creepy clowns, pumpkins and other truly fantastically dressed folks.
All in all, it made for a very interesting Halloween away from home.
makholla@indiana.edu
