Catching up on the events of the past month or two, in late October I attended an annual Halloween party at the Mercy Center in the Bangkok neighborhood Khlong Toei. Mercy Center, founded by a Catholic priest who has been a longtime fixture in the surrounding slums, provides extracurricular activities and ongoing education for local children. The Halloween party is pulled together by several business owners associated with the American Chamber of Commerce.

This was the second time I volunteered and this year I scored the assignment of working the face-painting table. While we had lots of face paint, our tools were limited and the children had high expectations: Zombie! Dracula! Ghost!

As you can imagine, over time the ghosts started to look more like vampires and the zombies started to look more like children with green faces. I was thrown for a loop when one girl asked to be a butterfly. It wasn’t until I looked at one of the face painting kits that I realized that there was a picture of a girl with a very elaborate butterfly on her.

Regretfully, I hadn’t the tools to make her as beautiful a butterfly as on the package, but she seemed pleased with the results. I tried my best and next year will be sure to bring some proper makeup sponges (instead of just using the random foam sponges we had access to) and brushes.

Still, it was a fun time and the 300 or so children seemed to really enjoy themselves. It is neat that there are so many people who come together to create these sort of opportunities for children.