Jack O’ Melon

I tried to explain Halloween to a Burkinabe co-worker and I think he was just being polite when he said that he understood what I had described, from carving pumpkins to trick-or-treating in costumes. Although there are various types of squash found here, I hadn’t see any pumpkins recently and by late yesterday afternoon, I felt a little crushed by the thought of letting Halloween slip by unnoticed. I announced to my housemates that I was going to pick up some veggies for dinner and to find the closest substitute vehicle for a jack o’ lantern: a watermelon. Two of them laughed and said they’d come with me, so we walked down the street to the market stand together, just as the wind was picking up. We stood before the pile of watermelons in search of one that was round enough, the right size, and would stand up on its own. We selected one and bought a few other veggies just as drops of rain began to fall. By the time we were halfway home, the rain turned to a downpour and we arrived home soaking wet.

We changed into dry clothes and started making a veggie and bean soup while the rain poured outside. While the soup simmered, Katie and I cut the top of the watermelon and started scooping the insides out. We made ‘cocktails’ with the leftover watermelon juice, lime and carbonated water (only missing a dash of vodka). We carved a design in the watermelon but discovered that we didn’t have any candles, so Leslie turned on her cell phone flashlight and put it in the watermelon.