Last week I organised my first activity at IYACA Youth Center. It was the 30th of October, so Halloween was very close and I started to ask to my Turkish friends if they were going to celebrate Halloween and if it is common to dress up in Turkey.
I was very surprised to know that Turkish people are not used to celebrate Halloween, or at least not as much as we are used to celebrate it in Europe. I had a look in many shops of Kayseri and, as a matter of the fact, almost nobody was selling Halloween’s stuff.
Suddenly I thought it was a good choice to focus the topic of my weekly activity on Halloween. I’m very glad I introduced Halloween origins and traditions to my friends at IYACA because for most of them it was the first time to have such a celebration.
What did we do? It's not Halloween if you don't have a mask! So first of all we made all together our masks; someone was Dracula, someone else was a zombie, we had also a ghost, a cat, a spider, skulls and Frankenstein. It was funny to do our own mask together using paper instead of buying it!
By the way, do you know why do we dress up at Halloween? It’s easy! Celtics believed that on that day ghosts turn back to life; in order to not being recognized by them, people wore costumes which should be as frightening as possible.
Halloween has a meaning itself but nowadays, I have to say that it is perceived just as a celebration to have fun: children are used to go from house to house asking for candies and young people wear costumes to go to parties.
What makes Halloween such a famous and special celebration is the atmosphere around it. It’s the night of ghosts, pumpkins, witches, cats and everything which matters with darkness and human death. The feeling of fear always has an influence to everybody!
After making our mask, I briefly introduced the history of Halloween and then we played all together some games and quiz about it. Who guessed the answer, they received candies, like children when are doing “trick or treat?”. This expression is always asked by children when they ring to the door of their neighbours and it means that if you are not going to give them candies, they will make a prank to you. So be careful if someone rings at your door at Halloween ;)
At the end we also had time to sit in a circle and tell us frightening stories, with the soft light of candles. I’m still thinking about the sleep-walking man who killed someone without realising it. What a chills story!
It was a very easy and funny way to celebrate Halloween, I hope you liked it and see you at IYACA for our next activities!
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