80's Halloween Bash!

October 30th, 2009

Jesus, the Muni Volunteer in neighboring Villa Florida, hosted a Halloween/Birthday Fundraising Party. It was 5,000 Gs ($1) to get in and drinks were 5,000 Gs (80 cents) each. (Yeah a beer here is $1, and that's with the 20 cent markup for fundraising profits!)

The Municipal Development group is having a leadership camp in Janurary so they are in the midst of raising funds. I'm excited to attend this camp because I may plan something similar for San Juan, and I would like to see one in action, so that I can learn from the successes and failures of the camp and generate ideas for how to plan and structure my own should I end up pursuing that idea in the future. This year's camp will focus on introducing youth to leadership principles in the context of volunteerism in order to start creating a culture and spirit of volunteerism in Paraguay.

It was an 80's themed Halloween party. I brought along several of my Paraguayan friends, and helped them create their costumes. I did some research online and came up with some examples of costumes we could create using free and locally available materials. I almost went as the dark side of Karate Kid (kind of like the dark spidey from Spider Man 3 concept). I had a friend who loaned me a black Karate robe and it would have been easy to make the sunburst bandanna. In the end, Juanjo really liked how cool the Blues Brothers outfit looked and had 2 black suits so I abandoned my inner Karate Kid and opted for Elwood, (the cooler, fatter, more funny me).





I borrowed the hat from a friend of Harry's, the tie and sunglasses from Peke, the white shirt from Pancho, and the suit and shoes from Juanjo.



Peke went as David Hodo, the constructor from the Village People, the group who sang the popular hit YMCA. The lady who owns the hardware store, whom I have befriended, loaned me a constructor hat, and a cooperative cable technician loaned me his tool belt, which rounded out Peke's costume.

Harry, named after his father who was a Peace Corps Volunteer who fell for a Paraguayan girl which he impregnated (hence Harry) and abandoned in Paraguay, went dressed in typical 80's fashion...note bubble vest and fingerless gloves. Sadly, Harry's father left his son in Paraguay and was later murdered in Mexico.



Juanjo and I won best costume. The prize was a CD of the best of the 80s and 2 packs of fruit flavored Mentos, the freshmaker.

The party was a bit disappointing, but we had a lot of fun regardless. I imagined a house party full of Volunteers in crazy costumes playing beer pong, flip cup, singing Karaoke, dancing, etc... I had really talked up the party to my Paraguayan friends, who anxiously waited about an hour and a half for a bus that was going towards Villa Florida to get there. Upon arrival we realized the party was in a giant rented out indoor soccer stadium, which made the small quantity of people in attendance appear even smaller.

I'm determined to deliver a first class, American style party to my Paraguayan friends. I guess I'll have to host a party once I have my own house. Despite the fact that the party was vastly different from what I had expected we had a lot of fun.







Peke stole a kiss from Julie, a volunteer who had recently returned from a 6 month medical leave to the States from a foot injury.



After the party ended at about 4 AM we headed to Jesus' two story pad to continue the Halloween festivities. There we just sat around talking and listening to music before passing out in the early morning. Harry fell in love with Julie. Julie...well, Julie was a good sport.





Paraguayans have amazing party stamina. They will often not arrive to the club until 1 or 2 in the morning and will party through the late afternoon.

This is what the Volunteers were doing at 5:00 AM.



This is a picture of what the Paraguayans were doing at the same time.





Haha.