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Costumes and Crying Skies

By Anonymous
Charlotte Combrink

It was all planned out.
During the three weeks leading up to the senior’s and eighth grader’s “Fall Fun Costume Party” (it was not a Halloween party, mind you—this is Dalat), Excom delivered invitations, had meetings, sent emails, and made announcements in preparation for the upcoming event.
And it was all ready. By 4:15p on Friday afternoon, 30 October, the portable sound system was set up with upbeat music playing from its speakers, the games were in place, and the Halloween-themed snacks were looking yummy! Monsters, mice, witches…and a watermelon flooded onto the court, bubbling with excitement for the party and for the weekend.
It is a Dalat tradition for seniors to pair up with 8th graders and become their “Senior Buddies”; they are then encouraged to get to know each other throughout the year. For this Friday event, each pair or triplet of buddies wore coordinated costumes and planned to go from station to station together, playing games like apple bobbing, donuts eating, ghost tag, and balloon stomp. This was the first real “buddy” event—and excitement had infected the students.
And then the rain came. Suddenly.
Just as the first relay race was about to start, the skies opened. Approximately 100 students and their costumes braved the rain to play a game that required each group of buddies to carry a water balloon between their bodies without using their hands.
Later, after some good-natured controversy about which team had won the race, the students headed towards their first station. By the time they arrived the rain had risen to uncompromising levels, demanding to be heard and heeded. It rudely forced ghost tag into the noisy gym and drove apple bobbing and balloon stomp to seek protection under the outdoor court’s cover. Meanwhile, the sponsors were hurrying to move the snacks out of the rain—but not before the hand-shaped plastic bags of popcorn and tissue-paper-lollipop ghosts got an unwanted shower.
Communication became a trial. The rain pounded so fiercely on the gym that the ghost tag game became a lip-reading competition. The loudspeaker, which was supposed to

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