Halloween!!

Dame dulces halloween! Dulces, dulces para mi!

(give me candy halloween! Candy, candy for me!)

  

Ever imagine how our Halloween traditions would translate into Latin culture? I admit the thought had never occurred to me until I found myself sharing a very narrow sidewalk with a throng of small princesses, pirates, and sundry superheroes all streaming towards the central plaza.

  

The proud mothers posed their dolled-up kids in front of their favorite Disney scene, arranged for photographs, showed off junior a bit, and then paraded back through town and into the various stores that offered candy. A true civic Halloween fun-for-all without much in the way of blood and guts.

Meanwhile at the community center many of the indigenous groups in Colombia had gathered to offer a day of speeches, prayers and music to help heal the state of the world.

  

The increasingly ghoulish interpretation of Halloween in the U.S. makes me sad. But I've never thought to pray about it. Traveling has opened my mind in many ways.