have an ICE day

Friday, November 03, 2006

McMurdo's Halloween Bash

The Halloween party at McMurdo is claimed to be the biggest party on the continent. People here spend weeks preparing their costumes for the contest. The prize for the winner of each category (Best Group, Best Antarctic Theme, Scariest, Funniest, and Best Overall) is a trip to Room With a View (at the base of Erebus). Unfortunately, my group got robbed. We didn't even place in the top 5 for the group category, and everyone was very shocked! They still are... just tonight someone told me that they thought we should've won.

So what did we actually dress as? Well, I had an idea a few weeks ago to go as the film crew who is here shooting a documentary. I figured I would be Anne the director, but I needed to find two guys to be Richard the sound guy and Sylvestre the camera man. Luckily, I was able to convince Jesse, one of our new janitors, to be Richard the sound guy since they both have a 'fro going on (just different colored). I made him a beard out of some curly brown material, and I through together a boom microphone. Jesse wore an atheltic jacket, which is what Richard has worn around town for weeks. Three days before the party, I asked Jude, a guy who lives in my dorm, if he had a costume planned. He didn't, and he agreed to be Sylvestre. I was able to track down a video camera that really worked, a backbelt, and some red framed glasses. He showed up in dark clothes which is what Sylvestre wore while filming. I wore a purple down jacket that my friend Matt found for me that afternoon, and I added a little duct tape to the back right shoulder. Anne ripped her jacket and did her own patch job on it. I poofed out my hair and put a little powder in it to make it look a little gray. I also took the sides off my glasses because Anne broke hers during Win-Fly and would wear them with rubberbands so they fit like goggles so I did the same. We walked around as a group, and Jude would put the camera right up in people's faces imitating Sylvestre as much as possible. Jesse would walk around carrying the boom mic over the people who were being filmed. I would rub my neck with my hand (people told me that she did that all the time, although I hadn't really noticed), and then I would imitate her voice and say how we didn't really know what we were making a film about. Every time someone asks Anne what they're doing here, she says that they originally came to film the science being done here, but once they became a part of the community they decided to start filming us working folks too. Every single person we went up to that was here during Win-Fly cracked up! Some of them took a minute to realize who we were. One guy even thought I was volunteering with the film crew that night and didn't realize I "was" the film crew until later that night.

Unfortunately, the film crew is spending 7 weeks at Mt. Boreas in the Dry Valleys. They missed the party, but Deany who's a mutual friend of mine and Richard put together a CD of photos from the Halloween party. Hopefully they will get it with their next food and supplies drop-off early this next week. If I know Richard, he will have the biggest laugh of all of them!!