HALLOWEEN

This past week I left my site for the first time since I was installed at the beginning of October. I haven't really had cabin fever, though, since my site is the second largest city in the country! But it was nice to have a change of scenery. Some of the other volunteers came into Segou last weekend, and on Monday we piled into a HOT, un-airconditioned, stuffy (did I mention hot??) bus and rode for four hours up to San, a different city in the region of Segou. Peace Corps has a "stage house" in San (only one of the two left in the country) where volunteers can stay while passing through. But they also sometimes go there to meet up with each other for a mini-vacation. They have a small tv and a dvd player there, so I got to watch some MOVIES!! Awwwshjyeah! I'd been going through withdrawls. Ooh -- and the day I left I went to the post office to see if I had any mail...and I got Maria's package! THANKS MARIA! So I got to take the dvds she sent me up to San -- I watched the Best of Will Ferrell (1 AND 2) and Old School. It was GLORIOUS! Ok, back to the reason for our trip up there -- Halloween. We had a get together at the stage house for Halloween. The theme for our costumes was "movie characters," but that kinda turned into "entertainment characters." I collaborated with Yuri and Miguel (who live closest to me) for our costumes. Yuri was Mario, Miguel was Luigi and I was Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros., and I must say they turned out pretty sweet. Actually, I was extremely impressed with everyone's costumes. Peace Corps has some pretty creative and resourceful people in it! For the materials available, people really went all out and produced some of the best costumes I've ever seen.

Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach

I bought the material for my costume and took it to a tailor (along with a fuzzy picture of the princess that I'd printed at the internet cafe). Within two days, he'd created my dress. It was awesome. I made my crown by cutting up a bucket and taping a yellow plastic bag to it, and I wore a candy necklace that was also in the care package I'd just recieved (thanks again, Maria!). Miguel and Yuri had their overalls made by a different tailor, along with our gloves. Malian tailors apparently do not know how to make gloves -- they were a disaster! I couldn't fit my fingers into half of mine, and the thumbs were literally only an inch long! Yuri's gloves only had four fingers! Oh well -- we tried...

As I said, a lot of people sported great costumes. We had a Marge Simpson and Lisa Simpson, along with a Troy McClure (you might remember him from such self-help videos as "Get Confident, Stupid!"). We also had almost the whole family from The Royal Tannembaums. I could go on...

Marge, Troy McClure and Lisa

The Royal Tannembaums

Michael Jackson and David Bowie

Halloween was a blast -- I got to be American (well, as American as possible in a sub-Saharan, third-world francophone country) for a few days. We even made ice cream and pizza pockets and watched Dumb and Dumber. It doesn't get more American than that!