Halloween and Todos Santos

Readers: The politics of resolving who has how many seats in Congress and of trying to set a firm date for elections continues. I spoke to one of the Congressional candidates today from MAS and he thinks that some sort of resolution, either by Presidential decree or otherwise, is pretty imminent. We’ll keep you posted and also, thanks to all the commenters who have helped shed light on the debate. Meanwhile:

Halloween and Todos Santos

Last night my three-year-old daughter experienced her first Halloween. By US standards it wasn’t much. I came home from work wearing a rubber monster mask (which she fortunately found to be more silly than scary) and then indoctrinated her into that most-USA of traditions, “trick or treat”. In our case this involved her putting on a pair of springy antenna as a costume and knocking repeatedly on the door to our home office to scream “trick or treat”. This was rewarded by my putting candy in a small plastic pumpkin that I also managed to find for sale on short notice on a street corner.

To be clear, all this was pale in comparison to Halloween back home in San Francisco. The first year that my eldest daughter (then six and freshly new to the US) had a US Halloween she thought she must have gone to heaven. You mean kids all over the city are going to dress up (she was a Dalmatian puppy, mommy-made) and go door to door and get candy? That made more of an impression on her than our chance positioning the night before at the end of the Castro Street transvestite parade. Elly kept exclaiming, “Que bonito” as dozens of well-coiffed men drove up in convertibles, most yelling “Hello there little girl,” to her little waving hands.

She was not, unfortunately, nearly so impressed when I came to her school dressed as a nun (bearded then). That costume did win me the friendship of her fifth grade teacher however, who often showed up in the Castro himself in full drag, and not just on Halloween. Well, that’s San Francisco.

I digress.

Halloween is really not much of a holiday in Bolivia. It seems to mainly show its face near Cochabamba’s solitary Burger King. Here that is the rough equivalent of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco promoting Chinese New Year, I suppose.

Here in Bolivia the moment in which the spirits and the living find themselves in close quarters is not celebrated with tiny versions of witches or The Incredibles wandering the streets. In Bolivia the action is in the cemeteries. Tonight, the night before Todos Santos, some families will sleep in the cemeteries, near or on the graves of their loved ones. Tomorrow the cemeteries will fill, a collage of family picnics with their dead. Tablecloths will be filled with the favorite foods of lost fathers, mothers and grandparents. Tanta wahwahs, fist-sized cookies baked in the shape of people will be eaten and handed to the wandering children who say a prayer for the deceased in exchange for a little food.

There is concern here in Bolivia that Halloween will slowly invade its way here and crowd out Todos Santos. Already some municipalities are prohibiting the practice of sleeping in the graveyard. More and more Bolivian five year olds can be seen showing up with black high-peaked witches hats. Older people fret openly that these children will grow up forgetting Todos Santos altogether, replacing the season with sacks of candy. You do have to admit, in a contest of holiday traditions, the one that involves fistfuls of dulces has a big starting advantage over one that involves sitting in a blazing early summer sun in a graveyard. I think my littlest would be swayed.

Scoff if you will, with proclamations that it is a free word and people can choose any darn end of October/start of November celebration they like. But all this is a part of the “we’re losing our culture” fear that lurks just beneath the surface in the Bolivian psyche. It is not unfounded, to be sure. The current generation of adults has already pretty much dispensed with traditional clothing, in favor of cheap imported t-shirts emblazoned with such gems as “Mickey’s Bowl-O-Rrama, Milwaukee”.

Perhaps there is ample room in Bolivia for both traditions. Perhaps Bolivians will find a way to preserve the rich culture they have inherited while still dipping into some traditions from the north. When I lived in San Francisco I celebrated both Chinese and Western New Year (and preferred the one with the big dragon).

In the meanwhile, que viva Todos Santos. And do send some bite sized Butterfingers down here if you can.