Halloween!

Ah, Halloween! Although it is not a holiday of much importance to the native Ecuadorians, it’s celebrated in style by foreigners here every year at the annual Peace Corp party fandango. In the name of international diplomacy and development goals, the organization rents out a humongous hostel, “El Verde Limón,” and provides unlimited alcoholic beverages to party goers until the wee hours of the morn. Nothing like inebriated under-qualified gringos in costumes to foster world peace.

My costume was a somewhat underwhelming affair to start, centered as it was around the one vaguely costume-like article of clothing I’d schlepped to this country—my knee length neon blue, cartoon character adorned bloomer-esk shorts that I bought with Lisa in Cambodia. I decided I could fashion a sort of super-hero-like ensemble around this center piece, so I bought knee-high red soccer socks, and a piece of red felt to which I sewed a large letter C out of sparkly gold and red ribbon. A make-shift Shira-like crown and a bright red t-shirt completed the ensemble. I was pretty pleased with the results, thinking it reflected a sufficient amount of effort, even if the end result character was a bit ambiguous.

Roommate Erin’s ensemble was enviably admirable. A mesh of pink and purple garmets, a construction paper guitar, a semi-balding /early-stages- of-chemotherapy-looking pink wig, and a pink star painted over her left eye—all combined to make for a fairly convincing portrayal of 80’s rock icon/cartoon character “Jem.” Jason’s attire was less impressive. Too cool to fully embrace his last resort drag queen idea, he went in just his regular clothes. Luckily a friend had some extra stage makeup, so a few hastily drawn bruises and blood streaming down from his eye sockets at least created the semblance of a costume. Given he likes to smoke in social settings, I suggested he shove a dozen cigarettes in his mouth and be Captain Cancer—blowing his creepy carcinogenic smoke into unwitting recipients’ eyes.

As for myself, I was thinking my C would stand for “Captain Craven” or something along those lines (a name which, despite it’s technical Webster’s definition, has a certain Marvel Comics-esk Superhero ring to it). As the night wore on, however, and the number of “who are you supposed to be?” inquiries mounted, I changed my answer to “Captain Carnage,” a nihilistic anti-hero of sorts who flew around leaving an indiscriminate trail of chaos, blood, and bedlam in her trail.

Luckily, my “Captain Carnage” outfit was not the only costume that was a bit incongruous with the ostensibly hippy peace-luvin’ mission statement of the Peace Corps hosts. Points for blasphemous creativity also went, for example, to the young fellow with the white t-shirt that had scrawled across the chest in stark black writing the words “Piece Corp” and several fake (I hope) intimidating guns sticking out of his pants. Another girl had provocatively wrapped herself in banana leaves, stuck a wrapped Trojan in her cleavage, and gone as a “hot tamale.”

Erin and I eventually left around 2, leaving Jason to his own devices trying to woo one of the myriad “sexy bunnies” in attendance. Though he too had mocked this trite cliché of a costume earlier in the week, (telling us “yeah, I don’t know what I’m going to go as yet. Maybe a sexy bunny like all the rest. Ha ha!”) It seems, however, the attractive powers of a strategically placed puff ball and fishnets were apparently too much to resist.