Trick or Treat

So, it totally doesn't feel like Fall here...how can it when the temperature never goes below 70 degrees? The sun is great, and the rainstorms are fantastic (awesome downpours with thunder and lightning), but I have to admit that I miss the changing of seasons. I would love to take a walk in the park right now, enjoying the crisp, cool air, and taking in the trees with red, yellow, orange, green, and brown leaves. I would also love the opportunity to rake up those leaves into a humongous pile and run and jump in them with my nephews Elijah and Micah! I would even love the chance to wear long sleeves and a jacket :)

Anyway, last week my roommates and I realized that it was almost Halloween! Halloween isn't really celebrated here in Uganda, but we decided to celebrate it as best we could. First stop? the grocery store. Bazungu (white people) don't usually buy pumpkins, and the fact that we bought 4 pumpkins had a few puzzled stares coming our way. Now, pumpkins here are not orange. They are white and green. So, we got 2 green ones, a white one, and one butternut squash.

My neighbor, Catharine, joined us for the carving extravaganza, bringing along a few carving tools. We had to throw all of our strength into the carving, because Ugandan pumpkins have very hard, thick outsides. Oh, and did I mention that our electricity kept going in and out, so part of our carving was done by headlamp?



Pumpkin prep: getting it all clean





Sarah and Catharine digging in





Kacie, hard at work.








The finished product!




Sarah, imitating her pumpkin's expression :)






Catharine and her pumpkin






Kacie's Mr. Lunt










The carving took place on Friday night. On Saturday, we continued the celebration by roasting the pumpkin seeds, making and decorating cookies, receiving visitors, and going trick-or-treating. It was a great Halloween!




Our visitors: two explorers passing by












Super Kate, Kacie the Couch, Sarah the Ant Slayer