Halloween in Namibia

Although Namibia’s population has a large component of British heritage, Halloween is not a widely celebrated custom here. There weren’t a whole lot of costumes available for purchase in the stores and most businesses are already focused on Christmas and their displays and product lines reflect this accordingly. The kids’ school, WIS, did allow the students to dress in costume on the Friday before and did hold an afterschool activity in the spirit of the tradition.

One of the mothers, incidentally of Brazilian origin but who has spent time in the States, organized a ‘Trick or Treat’ event in her “neighborhood” on the Friday evening and invited the kids from school as well as the neighborhood to participate. It must be noted that neighborhoods here don’t exist in the same way as they do in the States. In much of the city of Windhoek, houses are surrounded by high walls topped with electric or concertina wire. Every house is equipped with an electric gate. This makes it a bit difficult for people to get to know each other and house to house Trick or Treating virtually impossible. Eloisa’s neighborhood on the other hand is attached to the Country Club and is gated, so there are fewer walls and bars and the kids were able to walk down the street and knock on neighbors’ doors. Fewer bars do not equate to no bars and a couple of residents did hand out sweets between those that surround their porches it must be said (see photo above).

Despite the fact that Eloisa had sent out a notice, many of the residents weren’t exactly sure what to do when the gang of disguised munchkins appeared at their doorstep. One fellow was apparently caught unawares and so he invited the entire group into his house, opened his fridge and allowed them to take a soda of their choosing. By the time the last kid reached the fridge, he was down to one can of Tab (some of us are old enough to remember the first diet soda that’s still marketed here). I’m sure his wife wasn’t real happy with him when she got back from work! At another house, when the lady ran out of treats, she began distributing packages of yogurt.

All in all, a fun time was had by kids and adults alike. The kids especially enjoyed stuffing their mouths with treats and running from house to house with complete abandon. It was a bit strange though engaging in Halloween fun in the middle of Summer. I came home sporting a sun burn and guzzled down at least a liter of water to try and quench my thirst after running to keep up with Annie who was literally crazed from the unaccustomed sugar rush.

The following day, the Embassy community also engaged in its own version of Halloween. No one distributed soda, but we did have to jump in our cars and drive around town to the various embassy houses that were distributing treats. It did put an interesting twist on the custom as a convoy of American vehicles snaked its way from house to house and the masked kids jumped out to collect their treats.

I’m not sure that the custom of Halloween has a future in this country—it demands too much trust among residents and requires people to open their gates and let strangers in, strangers in search of free treats nonetheless! Perhaps if they did do so every now and again, they could finally rid themselves of the architecture of apartheid that continues to characterize this place. What a concept!