Halloween

For Halloween, our program staff decided we would have a little party at our center because Halloween is not widely celebrated in India and they knew we would want to do something. Unlike most 16- to 22-year-old girls, our costumes focused less on how little clothing we could wear and more on what, if anything, we could scrap together from the clothing we have in India. For many people, this involved making dubiously politically correct ethnic costumes, such as Mexican gangster and Russian grandmother. Harkening back to the days of high school, I opted to create a makeshift jellyfish costume. My mom had once made me a jellyfish costume made out of a sunhat covered in shimmery blue fabric, with strips of purple, blue, and turquoise fabric of different textures hanging from the brim. My mother is nothing if not crafty (and really, really good at sewing) so it was a pretty impressive last minute costume.

My jelly-in-Delhi costume, however, was even more scrapped together. I planned to pin my and Rachel's dupattas (the scarves we have to wear with all of our Indian clothes) to the edge of the straw hat that I take everywhere with me. Rachael decided to borrow my flannel (I don't want to talk about why I brought a flannel to India, other than to say that one should never ever pull an all-nighter packing and writing a final paper) and straw hat so she could be a cowgirl, so I determined I would use her hat for my costume instead. The next day, though, I forgot it as I walked out the door, and I was forced to improvise even further when it was costume time later.

I ended up using an old shipping box to pin the multi-colored dupattas to, and I had to take it off while I was carving a pumpkin because I couldn't see anything. We thought they would have candy for us at the party because that's a pretty crucial part of American Halloween, but I'm not sure they really understood that so instead we carved pumpkins and ate Chinese food. It was really fun regardless!