Part 3 of the Halloween that will not end

Everybody from my Spanish teacher to the embassy drivers to taxi drivers told me that the thing to do with children on Halloween in Bogota is to go trick-or-treating at the big shopping malls. I can't quite make out whether this stems from when Bogota was going through its unsafe period or whether it's because there are creepy people everywhere who stick razor blades in Halloween candy.

Regardless, we chose a humongous mall to take Mac to this afternoon and Lord, have sweet mercy on me, I can check that box off on the list of cultural things not to be missed in Bogota. Fortunately Jimmy had use of the office driver and he was able to maneuver his way up close to drop us off. He said the parking lot is meant to hold 4000 cars and it was overflowing with a line of cars around the block to get in.

Crowds outside the mall


Crowds inside the mall

C.R.A.Z.Y.

Imagine shopping on Black Thursday. Now imagine shopping on Black Thursday with people - entire families - in Halloween costumes. That's Gran Estacion on Halloween. And we were told it would only get worse as the afternoon progressed because tomorrow's a holiday so no school or work for most people.

I'd like to leave you with some photos of the grand event at Gran Estacion. These will (hopefully) be the only Halloween mall photos you ever see from me as I don't ever intend to attend such an event again.

Not your average shopkeeper


Just your ordinary Colombian family out for a Sunday afternoon stroll

a very cool Mr. Potato Head

the cutest, littlest Woody and Jessie ever

This guy got his shirt from Wal-Mart - the children loved it!

mall trick-or-treating with some friends from the embassy











P.S. The only way I'll go back next year is if we - Jimmy, Mac and I - go with a theme and we all dress up in costumes for the theme, like we saw entire families dressed today. For instance, we could be like the family of butterflies that I saw today or the pirate family. You get the picture. I'm checking the online Halloween costume sales tomorrow, just so you know.

P.P.S. I am so glad Halloween is OVER. Nothing made me happier than removing that hideous orange plastic tablecloth off the dining room table that's been on there for weeks to add to the ambience of our home. I never really have ever felt this way, but I cannot wait to put up the Christmas tree. Is it too early to do that on November 1??

Halloween at the embassy

Yesterday we went straight from school (after 6.5 hours of partying) to trick-or-treat at the embassy. Now we've been part of a number of embassies and consulates for the Halloween season, but I've never seen anything like what I saw yesterday.

Different sections of the embassy chose their theme and then went on to produce an elaborate and extensive reenactment of the theme that was worthy of a movie set design.

Are you a Wizard of Oz fan? Well, here you go courtesy of the GSO section.










You're more of a Hansel and Gretel fan? No problem. NAS had that covered.






Harry Potter was covered in a hallway full of hogwarts and wizards. They offered Mac, aka Harry Potter, a job!

There was a lot of scary stuff, too - plenty of haunted house, creepy stuff that was spooky!




Even Mac's favorite Buddy, the Elf was present!

It was great fun. And I stand by my assessment that nobody does Halloween better than Colombians!

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!

more from Mac

Tonight at dinner, Mac and I were discussing hygiene. I know it's probably not what you discuss over spaghetti, but it was our dinner conversation.

I have a hopefully irrational fear that Mac will become one of those prepubescent boys who doesn't know (and his parents don't either) that he needs deodorant and he'll go around smelling and people will avoid being around him. I really hate the smell of prepubescent, stinky boys.

So we were talking about bathing regularly, using deodorant when the time comes, doing underarm sniff tests, etc.

I told Mac that I wasn't really sure when it happened, but at some point, he'd start stinking so we had to be ready.

He matter-of-factly told me that "boys stink for forever".

the evolution of cell phones

Mac is pretty sure he needs a cell phone.

I'm pretty sure he's lost his mind.

Today he and I went out for lunch at his favorite El Corral Gourmet. While we were waiting for our food, he was playing one of the three games on my cell phone, which is just about the cheapest, most nondescript phone that Nokia makes.

Mac asked me how old I was when I got my first cell phone. I told him I was 23, had graduated from college and really only got one then because I was traveling for the FDIC and wanted to have it in case the car broke down or I got lost, and most importantly, I paid for the cell phone and the monthly bills with my own hard-earned money.

I told him that phones then had no games or applications on them, no camera, no music-playing or video-watching capabilities, and certainly no Internet connection. I don't think I'd even heard of the Internet then.

I then proceeded to demonstrate with my hands how big this phone actually was and how it came in its own little suitcase that you had to carry with you if you needed to take the phone outside of the car with you. The phone really was more of a car phone and less of a cell phone.

See Exhibit A for evidence (in case you've forgotten how big your first bag phone really was):

Apparently it's a remote concept to a very tech-savvy 7 year-old that something can be that big without having any purpose other than to make phone calls because he then quite seriously asked if I'd had the first iPad.

There are many things my first bag phone was, but an iPad is definitely not one of them.

after all my smack talking...

Ruth called this morning at 8:30 to check on Mac because she was so worried about him. I told her that the fever and the headache had completely disappeared (and never came back all day), but I couldn't come up with the right word for "throat" to tell her that he still had a sore throat. I asked her to hold on for a minute while I used the ever handy Google Translate, but she thought I meant I had to get off the phone right then and she hung up. I looked up sore throat online, and tried to call her back but her cell phone went straight to voice mail. I left her a message to tell her that he had a sore throat and asked if she had any recommendations for clearing that up.

Well I never heard from her, which I thought was odd, if only because it's so unlike her. But cell phone batteries die, people leave the phones at home, etc. And it wasn't her day to work here anyway, so the fact that she even called this morning impressed me.

And then at 4:30 this afternoon, the doorman called to tell me that Ruth was here and was on her way up. She'd been babysitting three children all day somewhere close to here and she'd gotten my message so she wanted to come see for herself how Mac was.

Is she the sweetest lady ever or what?

She was concerned that he needed antibiotics (apparently it's okay to take prescription meds but not over-the-counter meds), but I told her that I thought it was this virus that was going around his school and everybody says it ends in 3 days so we should be near the end. I had to tell her what he'd eaten and drunk today so she was satisfied that it wasn't too sore.

She went upstairs to visit with him and see for herself that I hadn't killed him with neglect. I could hear them chatting away, him in English and her in Spanish. I have no idea if they understood each other but they were getting along as usual like old friends.

I love this lady.

oh ye of little faith

Maybe it was the potato wrap or maybe it was just time, but Mac woke up this morning feeling much better. The headache is completely gone, the fever is completely gone and only the sore throat remains.

I have to admit that I'm tempted to call Ruth to ask for the shaman treatment for sore throats....