carnaval !

In Europe, they don't have Halloween. When discussing this with my students, it was revealed that a few years ago "they" tried to impose Halloween upon the French people. Guided by the leading and somewhat pointed questions of their teacher, my students decided that "they" must be a group of private enterprises looking for further ways to make money off the French people. Like Valentines day. My students were probably right.


By now, it may seem like I have a pro-Europe bias. (Which is not true! As part of my experience living abroad, I've genuinely come to love and adore North America's open mindedness and imagination and identify myself as a Canadian above all, through and through - perhaps more on that in another post...) But it must be said that while carnaval resembles Halloween in its use of costumes and fireworks, I found it to be a far superior celebratory experience.


There was the giant (and I mean gargantuan) bonfire. Then there was the costumed march with paper torches from the Main Square to the river ending with fireworks and hundreds of costumed participants simultaneously casting their torches into the river - a truly breathtaking effect. The abundance of men in ridiculous drag didn't hurt carnaval's standing in my eyes either.


But above all, it was the successfully created spirit of community, inclusiveness and having a silly fun time that really sold me.



(photo credit: Matthieu)
Before I go any further, I must confess to being a long-standing Halloween-humbug (a bias possibly created whilst I was living on a university campus). It's been the predictable neverending parade of stumbling floozies in lingerie and animal ears followed at a few slinking paces by the requisite throng of creepy dudes that's made Halloween ghastly for me in all the wrong ways. When you're too old to be a child going door to door and too young to be at home giving out candy - this scenario is difficult to completely avoid.


Perhaps I'll be ambitious and try to organize something that injects that carnaval spirit into Halloween next year now that I'm sure that fun times with costumes can be done right. Party at my place?