Some wonderful mothers here in the embassy and school
communities organized trick-or-treating for our kids on Halloween. Most oil companies are represented here,
thereby bringing a large American ex-pat population here to Angola. Most of them live in compounds outside of
Luanda in a more upscale and quiet city called Talatona where the international school is also located. They’re in gated/guarded
neighborhoods with other amenities like yards, parks and playgrounds, tennis courts,
etc. Things we don’t have in
Luanda! So as you can see by all of the pictures, the kids love the green space and freedom to run around without worry. My first thought driving around
where we went trick-or-treating was that the landscaping and construction of
the homes reminded me of California. And
the nice even temperature of the evening.
The houses that were “participating in Halloween” had a flyer in their
window so we could easily know where to go.
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| Excited to see us show up during a game of musical chairs. |
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| Savannah, on her own, takes on the job of doing Rhea's witch make-up. |
Weirdly, Rhea was the only one of my kids that really felt like
dressing up. Thomas wanted to dress up,
but part of his ninja costume was apparently packed in the UAB which had not
arrived yet. So he decided to wear black
clothes and go as a “shadow.” I would
see him every now and then laying on the ground behind or in front of someone
being their shadow. I’m still amazed
that he never got stepped on. Savannah
was going to be a doctor, but her mood changed and she decided that she didn’t
want to be a doctor anymore. These
costumes were all worked out in VA weeks ago, so I thought we were good to
go. Anyway, another mom that was hosting
a pre-trick-or-treat meal at her house, offered to let Savvy use one of her
daughter’s many costumes. But still, she
wasn’t in the mood for anything. So Rhea
went as a witch, as planned, even though there was some drama there for a
little bit too. Savvy had put some dark
makeup all over her face so she would look like the Wicked Witch of the West
from Wizard of Oz. She also had a long
green nose, hat, dress, and tights, which she thought were great. Until…she stood next to a princess and Wonder Woman
for pictures. J She stood on her tippy toes and made me lean
over for her to whisper in my ear. “I
want to be something pretty.” She
started taking things off and I thought we had lost her until I suggested that
we take off the nose and we could wash her face and put a little lipstick on
her so she wasn’t a “mean witch.” That
seemed to work or was at least enough to convince her not to make any major
changes. Briant was luckily there too
and was key to the convincing—a dad plays an important role in helping his
daughters know they’re pretty!
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| Note Thomas being a "shadow" on the ground. :) |
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| After seeing a lot of "scary" things in the Haunted Passage, Rhea asked, "Why do they do that? It's scary. I don't like that." I tried to laugh about some of the stuff we saw and make light of it. But she still wasn't sure why people even like scary stuff. |
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At the end with all of our loot. Luckily a few kids came by to trick-or-treat where we were sitting but we didn't have anything. So Savvy offered to give them some of her candy. I thought that was a great idea to help get rid of the candy faster!
I bought a few cheap and easy Halloween decorations before we left Virginia, knowing that we wouldn't see our belongings for a while. Nothing that Martha Stewart would be proud of, but they were good enough for us to do the job. I was only able to put them up 4 days before Halloween. :) |
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