Halloween, Spanish style

The week preceding Halloween was quite hectic here in Espana for two reasons. The first being the Spanish substitute teacher policy…it doesn’t exist. With one of my teachers sick, I was forced to take over not only English grammar but also history in Spanish. The classes should have been video taped because no words can describe what really occurred. Hangman can only suffice to entertain 9 year olds for so long. The second challenge of the week was that the Spanish professors expected us to prepare a class on Halloween; however, they didn’t see it fit to tell us we were running the class until the morning. My improvisation skills were put on display, though it helps when the student’s English is limited and you can spend 45 minutes explaining a short ghost story.

Perceptions of the holiday are also very different, as is to be expected, in Spain. Trick or Treating is not as popular and those that do go prefer to ask for money (and not for UNICEF but for themselves). As for the adults, although the same does apply to some extent to the children, they too have a skewed view of our traditions of Halloween. Where we dress as whoever/whatever we like, the Spanish believe that a Halloween has to denote something horrific or grotesque. During Carnival they have festivities where they dress as whatever they like so it makes sense as to why they have said preconceived notions.

As for my holiday, which pretty much epitomizes my last few weeks of social life, I spent the weekend at either my friend Mike (American) or Alex’s (Spanish) apartment for parties. Cleighton was in town so apart from part duex of my tour guide duties, we relived the glory days a little bit. I am pretty sure that Bruce Springsteen’s song was playing in the background during everything story reminisced upon (or at least it was in my head).