Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Tropical Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen

The room is dark. I sit in silence at the desk and try to keep my keystrokes quiet. The night has been ruined by the most powerful four letter word in the English language. When coupled with candy, it brings hundreds, maybe even thousands of kids into the street, most in costume, many not. Free candy!

The government housing area we live in is mostly occupied by palagi's. The kids know this and they know that Halloween is a palagi custom. Truck loads are dropped off, the small, usually quiet roads are bumper to bumper with pick up trucks and SUVs carrying as many as 20 kids in each of them. Last year I bought several bags of candy and they were gone in under 5 minutes! And I was being stingy...one piece per kid! There were so many that I couldn't tell if they already been by the house! Many had the same costume or no costume at all. The littlest kids didn't even know what they were doing singing some song to a strange palagi!

Cynthia was already home when I got pulled into the driveway. We had planned to go to a movie, or out to dinner to avoid the masses and figured we had until dusk to make a plan. As we were contemplating what to do, we could hear the first wave coming! They were early this year! Our minds raced, we didn't have candy, we were supposed to be out of the house by the time they came around! "Get in the car!" I shouted. I could hear the kids singing their terrifying song as they walked up our street and closer to our house..."Halloween, trick or treat, give me something good to eat!" It was barely 5pm and still light out. We fumbled for the car keys and bolted out the door and could see the SUV in front of our house emploring their kids to continue singing that hideous song..."HALLOWEEN, TRICK OR TREAT, GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT!" "We don't have any candy" we pleaded! They sang louder!

We were seated for dinner by 5:15, not surprisingly we were the only people in the restaurant. We tried to eat slowly. We sauntered around the shopping mall. We went home. We were only going to stop by the house for a minute. Drop off the leftovers, grab the flashlight and walk to a friends house, then the bank. I killed the lights as we pulled onto our street. We quickly got out and ran into the house. No lights, can't risk being noticed. We were in and out in less than a minute and started walking to our friends place. It was dark now and the streets were crawling with kids and trucks full of more kids. Literally as many as 20 kids in the back of the trucks. As we walked down the road to the house, there was a line of trucks, most of the houses were empty, people knew to flee. Two kids asked us where we lived, "around here" we said. We asked where they were from and they said "Nu'uuli" which is the village next to ours. "No candy there" they said. I asked what they were dressed as and they said nothing. Just after free candy!

Our friends weren't home, we walked to the bank. Kids on bikes, kids walking around, kids in trucks, they were everywhere. "Halloween, trick or treat, give me something good to eat!"

We figured it would be nearly over by the time we returned from the bank. As we neared our neighborhood there were still kids loitering about. It felt as though they were following us just so they could sing that song...THAT SONG...GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD!!! We didn't walk down our street, instead deciding to walk up the grass around the back of our house and sneak in the back door. No lights, still too risky. The dogs barked, chased some kids away.

Now here I am sitting in darkness. The dogs are still barking occasionally, but its slowing down. Still no lights though, too soon. Perhaps a movie, if we keep the volume low. We can always mute it if we hear the dogs bark, a sure sign that trick-or-treaters are nearby. Just another tropical Halloween!

2 Comments:

At 14:54, Anonymous Anonymous said...

And here we sat in Gold River, California with left over bags of candy!!!!!!!!! We had about 4 groups of kids and that was it! And one of the trick or treaters complained that we didn't have skittles! We were passing out chocolate.

Loved the blog Ryan! We both got a good chuckle!

love, Mom

 
At 04:53, Blogger Unknown said...

My whole life there I only went out trick or treating 3 times in three different Halloween, but we have to sneak out my parents won't allow us to go it's against there religion. I was a kid and I want candy(LOL)... before was no costume no candy or if you don't know how to sing the whole song you don't get candy... you are sooo right about the kids following you around and coming to your house 10times. I myself done it too(LOL!) but I only did it twice not ten times. First I went with my painted face hair tie back and then I went again with a mask and with my hair down(lol) So 2yrs ago I get to sit outside with my palagi neighbor to make sure that we don't give out candy to the same kids. I caught a lot a kids coming in twice. The next year hardly anyone come there because a samoan woman is sitting there watching:)

Great blog! Love everything about it!

 

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