Dar es Salaam Diary

The highlight of this past weekend was a bit of cultural diplomacy in the form of Dar's finest and most frightening Halloween bash (OK, that was a direct quote from our text-message invite...). My housemate Michelle had just returned from the States, bearing candy corn, fake cobwebs, a pumpkin-carving kit, a giant trash-bag spider, and various other trappings of the holiday, so we were set.

The biggest challenge was choosing a costume. I wanted to be sure that it would be something that people who weren't necessarily familiar with the holiday would "get." My first thought was to go as a daladala (local minibus) conductor, since their trademark jumpsuits can be purchased on the side of the road, and my only prop would be a pile of coins to shake in people's faces. However, I worried that this choice of costume might be un-P.C. so I opted to go as the "Party Police," and outfitted myself with a nightstick (really a toilet-plunger handle), badge, and book of tickets with which to issue "beverage penalties."

I had an undercover partner in law enforcement, my friend Masse, who doused himself in cologne and hair gel in order to masquerade as one of the Miami Vice guys. Together we were able to keep things reasonably under control...

It turns out I need not have worried much about being P.C. as our party guests included two blonde American girls dressed as Masai warriors, and a number of African chiefs. (The latter costume choice was more acceptable, since most of the disguised were actually African. Indeed we had quite impressive Continental representation - Kenya, Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, in addition to Tanzania...)

The best costume prize was nabbed by an American who came dressed as the World Bank. He had come straight from a wedding, so made the best of his formal suit, accessorizing with a brochure he had produced to convince developing nations to sign their countries away. The brochure explained the benefits of a petroleum-based economy, among other things, and included some very, very fine print with the details of such an agreement.

In terms of cultural diplomacy, I think we successfully conveyed the spirit and meaning of Halloween, at least as it's currently observed in the States. Apparently when the U.S. Embassy threw a Halloween party last year, the local media reported on the event as a gathering of devil-worshippers!