Aque's "Butterfly-Balerina" was the only hand-made costume for the whole school (about 200 kids), although I also used the ready-made blank white wings from a dollar store for the base to decorate, the others didn't make even such a simple effort to add some "personal touch" to the carnivale. So I've taken some photos of the school parade, but there was not anything special there. I didn't have time for making something for myself.
The old ladies at Le Coin de la Famille confessed that they never had such a celebration in their childhood. (And some of them haven't ever tried fennel as herbal vegetable and not a tea - what a poor culture! )
Some of my Chinese friends first were not excited about skulls and ghosts, mentioned Qingming in which small children don't participate, but then went "yao tang" ("asking for candy") and were prowd of the tons of sugar and artificical colors collected.
At St. Vladimir we didn't have any party since all the the money and efforts were spent for the cross on the centrall dome. My students started asking me about the party, so the dialogue naturally went to the imaginary and real horrors, I gave them the hand-out with poems by Fedorak and late Stus, told them about Stus, how cautious and even tame (!) this person was , that he never fought against anything, never participated in political activities and was interested in cultural issues only. (My father was not his "best friend", but knew him personally.) One of my students was the most excited about the idea of smuggling the texts from and into the prison. (I assume the mentioned poem was written in the prison.) The "romanticism" is natural for his age (12). Let it be. He is on a more or less calm continent...
to be continued