Friday, 2 November 2012

Halloween in cairo


Well, Halloween in Egypt has OFFICIALLY passed. (although tonight, many embassies are holding their Halloween parties.  I know a few staff members who claim the Swiss embassy holds the best Halloween party in all of Cairo and will be going tonight.  Last night was my “BIG” night out- and I got home in somewhat of a panic of how I was going to manage a good costume with NOTHING on hand.  I didn’t wanna do my school-teacher ‘snow queen’ costume with snowflakes pinned to my white skirt.  Its Halloween!  I mean, I’m used to having props, costumes, and professional grade make-up and prosthetics at my disposal.  So I pulled out my street make-up, went into the kitchen and started scavenging.

The result:

shoot zombies in the head to kill them

My eyes have never seen so much sephora make-up in their lives, my face was pale with white ‘highlighting’ shimmer powder and baking flour and the best part: my blood!! (Or should I say: crystal light mix and dish soap) I was so pleased with the result. I consider myself a ‘hallo-genius’ Not many people could have thought of this master idea.  And trust me, ketchup is NEVER the answer for a quick fake blood recipe. It just looks like you attacked a sloppy joe.

Oh, in case you didn’t know, we went as the sheriff and zombie from HBOs ‘walking dead’ series

We were supposed to attend the CDN embassy Halloween party but by the time we got ready it was too long of a cab ride and I was not planning on setting foot on the metro looking like that (let us not forget, most Egyptians do not celebrate Halloween, and even if they did, the walking dead on the metro near tahrir square does not sit well with me..) 
I should add, many egyptians have adopted the traditions of the holiday and on halloween night we saw many masked faces and devil horns walking around the neighbourhood.  Not trick-or-treating, just scaring people, having fun and yelling 'hahhhpee halloweeeeeen!' in naturally awesome egyptian accents.
In 6th of october, where my school is- halloween is celebrated with trick or treating because the area is so heavily populated with western expats with children and Egyptians and their children. 

ANYWAY, We decided to go to the ACE club in Maadi which is about a 4 minute walk from our apartment.  Luther and I met up with some friends we have made around the neighborhood and made our way to the ACE (Association of Cairo Expatriates)

The place was just FILLED with all sorts of costumes, from jesus to a rubix cube. 
I would have to say, I have happily gotten Halloween out of my system.  I am okay with not going ‘all out’ because I got to carve a pumpkin (which we made a delicious stew with), decorate my school and ended up having an awesome costume that a lot of people recognized and I got to party with awesome friends from all over the world.

fellow teacher creatures :)

happy halloween everyone!
My gift to Luther: 2 bags. one says 'trick' and one says 'treat' - you had to pick ONE.  So he picked 'trick' and found a box of his favourite western cereal- 'trix' .  I let him open the other bag (treat) because it was BACON. Something you cannot find so easily in Cairo...

my gift was trick-or treating in our apt.!! I  got good chocolate like twix and dairymilk!! And tickets to Cairo Operas production of the Magic Flute in November!!

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