Halloween

I've been asked numerous times whether people here in Palau celebrate Halloween and the answer is a resounding yes. The stores have been decorated for Halloween and kids went trick or treating. The eternal tropical climate does not inspire thoughts of Fall and Halloween, but being the end of October it is time to celebrate Halloween.

A week ago, Erin, one of the attorney generals, approached LB, Christy, and I to help with a haunted house being run by the Air Force CAT team. The U.S. military maintains a small civilian assistance team here at a small camp in Airari State. They rotate a new team in every six months and the current Air Force team arrived a few weeks ago. The CAT teams do a variety of projects like work on roads and train Palauans in mechanics and medicine. They have put on haunted houses before at their camp but this year they held it at the high school in Koror. I volunteered to guide the groups through the haunted house. The group of kids first entered into the torture room where they had a guy in a stockade, a guy in an electric chair, and a guy chained to the wall who would all jump out at the kids to scare them. Next was the coffin room, where Dave and Ryan were in coffins and grabbed people as they walked by. After that was the infirmary with blood and guts everywhere and then a butchery with fake body parts lying around. Next was the sheet maze where we guided the kids around and a few people, including Christy, would scare them. After that was the classroom where the television would distract them when a large CAT guy with a de-chained chainsaw jumped out at them. Finally, they walked through the hanging dead bodies with a few real people mixed in. As a guide I got to see the groups go through and there was many very scared kids. Some of the groups were a little out of control, but most had a fun and scary time. The lines grew long and I would guess that 700-800 people went through the house, which is a lot of people for Palau. The police helped with security, but had us close by ten o'clock. I had a great time helping to scare the kids and it was a fun way to celebrate Halloween.