Hello November!

Halloween, one of my favorite celebrations, has come and gone. The year I was abroad in Ecuador I spent Halloween bussing across the country trying to catch our flight out of Lima, Peru to get to Cusco to start our hike on the Inca trail after being unable to fly out of Quito when planned. Ecuador didn't really celebrate Halloween they celebrated Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) with pan de wawa, colada morada and some nasty soup. I definitely ate a lot of pan de wawa and colada morada to celebrate the time of year. Then last year of course we had the best Halloween celebration of all time at the Community Center! Colombia surprisingly celebrates Halloween in very American style and tradition... i'm realizing more and more how they just really try to be as American as possible. All over the city apartment buildings, businesses and stores of full of classic Halloween decorations, however I have yet to see a real jack-o-lantern. Its funny because even though they have all the decorations and celebrate the holiday I don't think they really understand why. But then again do we Americans really know the true history behind Halloween? Halloween was the topic of all my conversation classes this week, and for the most part it was very very successful! This Halloween weekend was kind of special and different here in Colombia because today is election day. Therefore starting last night at 6pm until tonight at 6pm no one can purchase alcohol. That meant Friday night was the night of Halloween celebrations or last night at house parties. I hadn't planned on celebrated Halloween at all and it made me sad, then last minute we heard an advertisement for a Halloween Celebration at Mango's a crazy disco that we were sure would go off for Halloween because it has crazy decorations, entertainment and costumes as it is. We Fulbrighters couldn't let Halloween pass by with out at least putting on some face paint. We got together at Meg's house, made some nachos (in american style) and got ready before heading out to Mango's. It was actually really nice to have it just be the four of us because we hadn't hung out the four of us in a long time and it was just the perfect night. Mangos was the best place to celebrate Halloween because of its eccentricities. Everyone was dressed up and there was a great costume contest. The top two winners were a woman dressed as Avatar (sooo awesome) in second place and a man dressed as Michael Jackson won first place, he was incredible he actually looked exactly like MJ (see picture of him and Elly below) it was insane!!

Happy Halloween from Team M

Elly and the Michael Jackson look-alike

Last saturday night I went to Edgar and Luz Mary's brother's house with them and a whole crew of their family to celebrate a sister-in-law's birthday. Even though I at times have negative feelings about that family, I am really happy that I went. It was so great to see Luz Mary and Jairo again, proved that it was good that I moved out cause now I have positive feelings for them, because they really are great people! I truly felt part of and welcomed in their family last night as I had met everyone before and I just feel so much more comfortable in Colombia in general. I came home last night feeling great about my life here and as if I had reached some form of a turning point.


On Monday, the actual day of Halloween, I spent all day in El Centro, a place that kind of scares me. But I have a new Colombian friend who lives in El Centro and he became our tour guide and I felt safe walking around with him. It was a lovely day. First Meg, her friend Erin and a friend from Cartagena and I went to El Museo de Antioquia because it has free admission on Mondays. There were all sorts of exhibits all different, including the permanent and most famous Botero (who is from Medellín). There was a small photography exhibit of trees, i immediately recognized it as California and looked at the description of the exhibit. The artist was named Ken Gonzalez-Day from Los Angeles... this name sounded very familiar to me but it took me a moment to place it. Then I realized I recognized this name because I had had an email exchange with this man, as he is the associate art professor at Scripps College!! I had tried to get into his photography class! My mind was kind of blown, here I am in Medellín, Colombia in a random museum and here I am brought right back to Claremont.. its such a small world and it just keeps getting smaller!


After the Museum we cruised around to a few parks, and watched many Colombian children dressed as pirates, cowboys, smurfs (pintufos), princesses, ladybugs and boys dressed as school girls as they trick-or-treated... or "trickytricky" as they say in Colombia. At 1:00 pm children were cruising around trick-or-treating.. however not from houses in residential areas, but from businesses. An interesting take on trick-or-treating, but it still gave me a positive fill of Halloween... maybe I haven't quite got my fill though because we are thinking about going back to the same disco we went to on Friday for their second weekend of Halloween celebrations!! I guess Colombia parties harder the US for Halloween!


In other news i have exactly 15 more days of work in this semester, then two months off!! I currently have epic plans in the making for a trip to Ecuador. I can't even imagine what it will be like to be in Ecuador again, with my family with my rugby team and just there again. After so much time to reflect on my experience in Ecuador and after 4 months in Colombia the way I see it will be so different. The Peña-Dolls have also invited me to their house in Cuenca for Christmas which will be great after having a shared love for Ecuador but never having been there together. It should be great!


And lastly Alfonso Cano, the leader of the FARC was killed tonight. This is a big deal in Colombia. 


Happy November to everyone!