The Swellendam Ninjas
It turned out we had accidentally made an error in our house/hotel bookings leaving us without a place to sleep for a night (bound to happen with a year of overlapping hotels and Airbnb bookings) between Plett and the Kogelberg Nature reserve, our next destination, so we decided to stop in Swellendam, a lovely-looking historic town about half-way between Plett and Kogelberg. We figured we may as well take advantage of our error, break up the 6-hr drive and see another little slice of this beautiful country to boot! A trip down the google rabbit hole led us to the Schoone Oordt Guest House, a beautiful old guesthouse in one of the oldest towns (3rd oldest to be exact) in all of South Africa, and off we went. We drive through the tiniest town we’ve ever seen and up to a beautiful old manor. As we are checking in our host comes out and asks the boys how they feel about Halloween…now Halloween has been a sore subject on our trip so far, one of the favorite holidays at home, which really isn’t celebrated here in South Africa (apparently there is a dominant Christian influence and Halloween is seen as a pagan or devil’s holiday) and the boys have been struggling with missing a year of candy, trick or treating and most importantly, chaos with their friends. We had compromised by buying black pants, shirts, hats and face buffs to make impromptu ninja costumes, settling on the idea of dressing up, eating some Haribo and watching Charlie Brown’s Pumpkin by ourselves. So, when our South African hostess announced that she LOVED Halloween and threw an annual costume bash for all the kids and families in and around Swellendam, it felt like we had won the lottery. The next 5 hours unfolded in a flurry of candy, hide and seek, kids squealing and screaming with glee, romping, raging, the boys utterly loving the fact that they were, one, with other kids for the first time in months, and two, dressed up like ninjas. While they raged we drank wine and met a wonderfully eclectic cast of local characters, all friends of the owners who also loved the holiday. Holden proceeded to fall in love, I think perhaps for the first time, with Hermione, aka Amber, a 10 yr. old girl visiting from Sommerset who was so sweet, absolutely adorable, and seemed equally as enamored with Holden as he was with her. The whole lot of kids eventually transitioned to playing hide and seek in our hotel room which gave us front row seats to Holden and Amber’s hand holding and giggling which was just too sweet, innocent and comical to watch. Somehow our calendar slip-up lucked us into what will likely be one of the boys best Halloweens ever.
