South African Miners
Since moving to the US, Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays. This has a lot to do with having kids and watching them get excited about dressing up, trick-a-treating and carving jack-o-lanterns. I get pretty excited at the thought of all that candy, I love carving jack-lanterns and decorating for halloween is just plain fun. I however, never really dress up. I mean I have a costume, but I bought it because it was convenient and easy to put on, but had no other thought behind it. I have been a witch 3 years running and frankly, it would probably be better for everyone if I just went as myself.
But alas, these days I am challenging myself to try something new or different and I am looking at halloween and wondering how to make some changes. What do I really really want out of my halloween experience? To add to the challenge this year, we have been invited to a halloween party and I should really make an effort.
I could go with something topical, like Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber, but seriously, no way! I toyed around with the idea of dressing up as a miner. This has something to do with the Chilean miners, because I think those guys are heroes but I was going to dress up like a South African miner, because that has such history, culture and nostalgia for me and there is an element of fun in thinking of being a miner. In South Africa there is a well known dance that came from the mines called the gumboot dance. Out of the terrible working conditions of a dark and damp mine, heavy digging and lifting, oppression by management (during the apartheid era) and total separation from family came a lively, rhythmic and fun dance. This dance served two purposes, to mock and undermine the terrible conditions and to also motivate and de-stress. I learnt how to do the gumboot dance, long before I learnt about where it came from and why.
I could go down a totally different path and be someone I really respect. Two people immediately come to mind: Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. Talk about people that were passionate, took a stand and changed the world. Lastly, I have always wanted to be a doctor, and boy would that be easier to pull off than trying to be Nelson Mandela!
Maybe I am thinking way too deeply about this whole halloween thing, because what I really really want out of halloween is to have fun. That’s great, I could have fun just going as Fez, she is pretty fun, but I could also have fun and get a good laugh going as something else. So my son and I have some work to do this week to figure out the perfect halloween costume for this year. There is only really one criteria for me, to finding that perfect costume, that it be a vehicle to having a blast this coming weekend.
If you have any ideas, send them my way .. before I get desperate and become a witch!