EcoAfrica Social Ventures

As a little light relief from the 24/7 election media bombardment, New Yorkers came out in a night of heightened silliness this year. Having been in Zimbabwe on Halloween for the past three years I set forth last evening sporting a funny hat, a point-&- shoot camera and a press pass - to join the parade. And what did I find? People were out in their hundreds of thousands, milling through the streets in the bizaarest of costumes, some stunningly beautiful, some hilariously political and some simply weird. It all looked so out of place but somehow appropriate that people should let go of their dignities and self importance for one night of laughter and exuberance. These were normally sane serious people, grown adults suddenly transformed into mad, wild, funny, abandoned individuals outdoing each other in demented behavior, living out their inner child.

They say New Yorkers are competitive but for a change, on Halloween, this often unattractive personality trait offers for the onlookers a plethora of riches. This was one such night. People were divided into two groups. Those in fancy dress, and those with cameras. Those posing and those clicking. The thing I loved was that the mean streets were transformed into an extraordinary fantasy environment created entirely by humanity shedding its serious side and embarking on an escape into sheer uninhibited madness for one uproarious night of the year.

I found myself in some outlandish situations. The subway for example, is normally a place where people keep to themselves and look down at their newspapers or gaze into space - self-involved with their iPods and busy creating for themselves serious future hearing-loss. Tonight the subways were infested with strange sites. I found myself pressed up close and personal to a man painted blood red and stark naked except for a codpiece, a tail and horns, trying to look nonchalant by reading a book, maybe hoping no one would notice him??? There was a couple loudly doing a fair impression of Sarah Palin and John McCain earnestly being interviewed by someone doing a fair impression of Larry King. They were drawing a big crowd of shutterbugs on the cramped environment of the platform filled to the maximum with packed jostlers teetering alarmingly close to the edge and certain death. Nervous NYPD officers looked on hoping not-on-their-watch.

The weather was almost balmy, which was good for the many nearly naked but painted individuals who were doing what should be considered normal types of activities such as sitting at tables at outdoor cafes ordering food, The waiters in serious clothes seemed completely oblivious to the incongruousness of the situation and were creatively reciting the menus as usual as if nothing was wrong or different to any other night of the year.

After the relentless press bombardment of the last days of election fever, the lunacy was a welcome relief.

Now back to the seriousness of event preparations for our Peter Godwin Book-signing fundraiser on the 12th November.