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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Peruvian Halloween

With Turkey day nearly upon us, we have little time to spare before the report about our amazing Peruvian Halloween festivities turns from very late to very irrelevant.

Since we left the country for unfamiliar territory mid-October, Melissa and Lana had the foresight to stage an early trick-or-treat session in my in-laws' Lindon neighborhood before we left. Don and Lana's neighbors were really great sports to allow our girls to shake them down for candy (that we had given them beforehand) ten days before the actual holiday.

Much to our delight, though, we learned that Peruvians also celebrate Halloween, and it appears to essentially have been co-opted from the American holiday and adapted to work for them. The kids here also dress in costumes, and our girls were giddy to find some basic ones in the market that, at $5 each, seemed like a real steal.

Trick-or-treating also happens, although I never once heard the actual words exchanged between the kids and the extorted adults among the chatter. I guess they skipped that part and let their bags do the talking. The only big difference was that, rather than go door-to-door through the neighborhoods, kids actually make the trick-or-treating ritual happen at the retail businesses in the town center. So, off we went, from the barbershop, to the pharmacy, to the mobile phone store, to the lingerie shop, to the appliance store, then the plasticeria (my favorite name ever for a store that sells cheap plastic crap!)










After investing a few initial awkward minutes in this new routine, the girls seemed completely in their element. They were ecstatic, raking in the candy and mixing it up with all of the local kids.

On Candy Patrol
Melee in the bric-a-brac store.


Trick-or-Treating at...the pharmacy???

....and what could go better with prescription drugs? Hooch!
Off to the liquor store, then!


 Then, once we had completed our circuit through the town business district, we parked it on the stairs outside the cathedral to soak up the chaos of the town plaza and count candy. It was sublime.

The team after the big game.



Another thing that was a different that night was that folks were gearing up to celebrate All Saints Day (1 November) and Day of the Dead (2 November). Specifically, the bakeries had made this special once-a-year sweat bread for the occasion, shaped and decorated like either swaddled babies or horses. So, having been informed about this tradition, we made sure to have the girls pick out their favorite loaf for the next day's enjoyment. Cheapskate that I am, I had fully expected to be the one stuck eating all of this bread once it was no longer a novelty (Mom-nivore). However, after a session of clobbering each other over the head with it, I was surprised to see that the girls actually enjoyed consuming the bread. So I only ended up having to eat about 3/4 of it instead.









It was a Halloween like none other, never to be forgotten...although I must say I was a little bitter that there weren't any Reeses to swipe from the girls' bags that night after bedtime. Doesn't anyone look out for the parents around here???







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