Halloween at CGB

Let me start by telling you that Colombians, or maybe just Bogotanos, do Halloween better than any other body of people on the planet, as far as I've seen. The costumes are elaborate (and not restricted by quaint notions of what's deemed "acceptable" or politically correct by us Americans), the decorations are unbelievable and the dedication to this holiday is enormous.

Allow me to share a story of Halloween dedication. Yesterday, Mac and I went down at 6:19am to wait on his bus for the regularly scheduled pickup time of 6:21am. At 6:35am, the bus still hadn't come so I ran back upstairs to get my cell phone to call the bus monitor. She assured me they were just 5 little minutes away. At 6:45am, I called her back and she said it would be one more minute. At 6:52am, more than 30 minutes after the regular pickup time, the bus pulled up. The bus driver was in a full cave man outfit and the monitor was his cave woman in full gear. And the van? Well, all the "nonessential" windows (meaning all windows but the front windshield and two front side windows) were covered on the inside with wadded up brown kraft paper to replicate the inside of a cave. I, being an uptight Type A American, was fit to be tied by now and became even angrier when I found out the reason the bus was so late: all the cave decorations fell down and they had to re-decorate the van before they picked up anybody. Right. So my kid was late to school, but the van looked good.

Here are two photos of some of the bus drivers who paraded during the school parade. In the first, you'll see the cave man and woman, aka Mac's van driver and the monitor, in the middle of the picture.

Everybody dressed up from the bus drivers to the teachers: (a hippie rocker teacher complete with smoking guitar and Birkenstocks!)

(a couple of random teachers)

(a monk with a beer keg, Robin Hood, a Scottish dude, etc)

... to the parents

... to the cafeteria staff

... to the administrative staff

... to the school director, vice director and high school principal (who all dressed as the people from the kids' tv show Lazytown). Here's the school director, aka head honcho, in the process of executing a perfect front handspring!

Activities for Mac's class included a dance competition, a magic show, a class party, participation in the school parade:

... bobbing for apples:

... and trick-or-treating.


The highlight of the day for me? Well, naturally it was some of the zombie teachers' rendition of Thriller. Mac's beloved teacher, Mr. Ahmet, is the zombie on the far left of the screen (long, black wig on his usually nearly bald head).



Year 3A in Halloween garb!