Carving squash - a 3rd world Halloween

We prepared dinner in virtual darkness last night - the person who designed this unit had the bright idea to put the kitchen at the front of the house (the front door opens into the kitchen). That's all well and good for 364 days a year, but it can create a challenge on October 31.

I'm not into Halloween, for a couple of reasons.
1. I can think of a lot of other ways to spend money than buying candy to hand out to the kids in the neighborhood.

2. With so much emphasis on the dark side of Halloween, I just can't celebrate, joke or mock - whatever you want to call it - about that.

When you grow up in the 3rd world where the spirit world is accepted as a reality and you don't have to go far to see it firsthand you know dressing up or watching others dress up as ghosts, goblins and the like is not something to be messed with. I find it odd that our culture makes such a big celebration of Halloween, yet generally refuses to accept the existence of the spirit world. I'm more and more convinced that the Evil One uses our inside-outness on this to keep our culture in the dark. Viewing it as a holiday to play dress up like firemen, Cinderella etc. is one thing, but I know too well the spirit world isn't something with which to mess around.

Plus, since pumpkins didn't grow in the Philippines, it was a challenge to carve a squash and the locals looked at us like we were morons.