Trunk-or-Treating

Little Dorothys, masked superheroes, princesses, astronauts, birdwatchers, miners, a dog dressed up as a flying monkey from the Wizard of Oz and more spent last evening at St. Francis in the Foothills 'trunk-or-treating.' I had never heard of trunk-or-treating before this event which involved gracious volunteers dressing up in costumes and decorating the trunks of their cars while passing out candy. Along with trunks for trick-or-treating, there were booths set up with games, an inflatable bouncer that was very popular with the young children and beads for making jewelry.

I have been out of the country for Halloween since 2005 and I forgot how much fun the holiday is and how it's a great escape to become something only found in fairy tales, cartoons, or in one's imagination. I brought two children with me from Bhutan for their second Halloween. One of the children, Krishna explored the entire carnival and went trunk or treating a few times and had a very full bag of candy by the end of the night. I doubt he got much sleep last night since I kept hearing him munching on candy throughout the entire event. Pankaj helped in handing out candy and we discussed how Halloween is somewhat of a strange holiday with people wearing crazy costumes; we discussed this while my face was painted as a cat and I was wearing large, floppy ears on my head. My favorite part of this event was seeing the large amount of refugee youth present with the kids from Tucson and having interactions with one another.

Среќен ден на вештерките! (Happy Day of the Witch! In Macedonian)

--Kathy Zaleski
(Iskashitaa Community Education Coordinator)