Halloween is a big deal to Americans overseas, as it gives them a taste of home. The Embassies we’ve been at have always excelled at Halloween and Embassy Lilongwe was no different. In fact, we had not one but TWO nights of spook-a-licious fun for the whole family!
Friday night was a costume party at the Marine House. And while the Marines are great at protecting the Embassy, it turns out they’re also great at throwing parties! :) They went all out with Finding Dory on the big screen for the kids, a haunted house and a festive environment for the adults. One of the things I love about Lilongwe is that kids are almost always invited and the event planners (soon to be me!) are great about having diversions to occupy the kids so the adults can chat too.
On Saturday it was time for the big Trunk or Treat. I had never participated in a Trunk or Treat and was way excited to see how it worked. Of course I had volunteered us to be one of the trunks, and most unusually, we waited until the last minute to come up with our idea (like seriously, 3 hours before the event started). I was very tapped out from another long week of dealing with contractors, so Nick took the lead as our Creative Director.
I was pretty pleased with our last minute efforts. We ended up doing a man-eating trunk. Most impressively, our entire creation was created with 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets of paper. That’s no small feat, I tell you!
There was lots of competition though – here were some of my other favorites:
A Star Wars Theme
A Disco/70’s Theme:
A Harry Potter/Hogwart’s Theme:
If I had to guess, I’d say there were probably about 100 kids and 100 adults there. Unfortunately, we only made it about 45 minutes into trick-or-treating before it began to downpour. We all made a mad dash for the house to begin the eating/socializing part of the event. What is so bizarre about this is that it’s only sprinkled 2 times since we arrived on August 1st. We knew rainy season was coming, but we thought it was still 2-4 weeks away. The land definitely needs it, but too bad it had to rain on our adorable trunks!
Michelle and Evelyn had never experienced Halloween before (it’s not a thing in Malawi), so we decided that they MUST come as our guests. They rummaged through Nia’s dress-up clothes, picked their costumes and we were off! They had an absolute blast and just kept starting wide-eyed at all the chaos. Hopefully Schorasticah won’t be too upset at us for sending them home with a giant sack of candy!
Nia was very particular about what she wanted to be this year. She wanted to be a unicorn, but not just any unicorn – a PEGASUS UNICORN. To those who said, “Aren’t you a cute unicorn? she’d roll her eyes, turn her back to them and say, “Can’t you see that I’m a PEGASUS unicorn?†like they were idiots. Oh Nia…
Obviously I’m biased, but I think she was a darn cute Pegasus Unicorn. Note to self for next year: white is NOT a good costume color when there is dirt everywhere. Oops. At least I got pictures before she turned it brown.
So there you have it. Another Halloween gone by. I hope all my US friends have fun trick-or-treating with your kiddos tomorrow night. Stay warm! Minnesota friends – I’ll be super jealous if you get a repeat of the ‘91 Halloween blizzard!
