Event: Hidden Villa “Halloween on the Farm”

Time: 4:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Oct. 24, Oct. 25, Oct. 26

Volunteers: 37

What: Hidden Villa Halloween on the Farm is an annual event where CSF members volunteer at Hidden Villa by serving as guides for young children and their families. This year, 180 children and adults attended. The theme this year was the Wizard of Oz. The theme this year was the Wizard of Oz, a story about a girl sucked into a land with a brainless scarecrow, heartless tin-man, and a cowardly lion trying to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz.

 

Oct. 24 – It’s nearing dusk. The location is Hidden Villa, a farm in the mountains, with no cell phone reception and little artificial light.

Volunteers, working as guides, were told to make sure that families stayed on the path and  that children were protected from the dangers of the dark. After being taken on a tour of the route they were to take, volunteer guides sat and ate, but dinner was cut off by the visitors’ quick arrival. Guides were called off in pairs, with each pair assigned to a group of around ten people to guide.  Equipped with flashlights, a tall sign with their group number and loud, cheerful voices, the guides were prepared to help Hidden Villa run Halloween on the Farm.

“I love how we’re not talking about grades or the SAT for once,” said guide junior Janani Sridhar to junior Oshin Joshi, a fellow CSF volunteer. Burdened by the stress of junior year and SATs for the past two months, both students were relieved to have this opportunity to relax, away from academics.

But in the absence of SATs, Hidden Villa had a whole journey prepared for the guides.

 

PROLOGUE 

Thirty steps from the check-in bench, the children were greeted by a Hidden Villa intern dressed in an apron to mimic Dorothy’s aunt. As rehearsed, she complained that Dorothy, who was supposed to do the dishes, had disappeared, and asked for the children’s help in finding her. Invigorated by this task, the children followed the guides’ lead, running around, spinning in circles, and imitating tornado sounds.

Next, the guides led the families to the three Munchkins. Children watched in engaged silence as the three Munchkins performed their song and dance, while adults’ eyebrows raised in astonishment as the three Hidden Villa interns spoke at higher octaves than their children.

Equipped with flashlights from the Munchkins and bubbling with laughter after the performance from, the children continued to follow their guides. They walked across dark roads talking and giggling, unflinchingly strolled past danger signs and laughed when they saw an army of vegetables. They were ready for anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE MUSICAL TRIO 

Beyond the ominous signs lay a barn, its jack-o-lanterns lighting the inside of the building a fiery red. Inside, guides introduced families to the Scarecrow — a brainless but talented singer. However, his majestic voice was soon cut off as a man dressed as a tree threw nuts at the beloved singer. The volunteers seemed to laugh louder than the children.

The Scarecrow then asked the children if they could help him find a brain. However, the children had no advice for him, and so they left and followed the guides out to the next spot. This spot was the benches of the Tin Man.

“Oil, Oil, Oil…,” mumbled the Tin Man, an intern dressed in thick foil. The children stared.

“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Joshi said.

The children continued to stare.

“Go find oil,” Joshi said, slightly desperate.

Finally, a small boy picked up a water bottle from the bench, and looked at it inquisitively, as if he understood that it was just plain water, not oil. However, at the Tin Man and Joshi’s urging, the boy began to rub the Tin Man’s joints with the water bottle.  Seemingly rejuvenated by the feeling of a plastic bottle” rubbing against his joints, the Tin Man played the families a song on the trumpet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As if such a ritual weren’t strange enough, the children experienced perhaps the only time they would ever hear someone say, “I lost my heart. Can you help me find it?” After several long minutes of searching and a bit of help from the guides, the children found the Tin Man’s heart and were able to move on.

After seeing the brainless Scarecrow sing and the heartless Tin Man play the trumpet, the kids marched along, ready for the next Hidden Villa performers: the partying Jitterbugs. With singing and instrumental music having already been covered, the Jitterbugs chose a different approach: dancing.

…Indeed, a rather different approach.

As the music played, the Jitterbugs energized and pumped up the children.

“Make a circle,” they yelled, already jumping up and down. The children formed a circle, most jumping along with the Jitterbugs.

“Let’s dance,” the Jitterbugs said, and each child broke into their own form of unorthodox dance.

“Adults,” the Jitterbugs said, hoping to get their attention. “Come join us!”

The adults did not move from their spots.

“Everyone should join,” the Jitterbugs tried again.

The adults exchanged sideways glances. One backed away slightly.

A minute later, the adults exchanged short relieved glances and laughed a little when the song ended.

THE LION, THE WIZARD, AND THE SPIDER IN BETWEEN 

“Are you guys feeling a bit sleepy?” Joshi asked, following the script as she passed through the magical sleep-inducing poppies.

“No…” one child timidly answered.

“Did you feel a little drowsy?” Joshi reiterated, trying to get the children to go along with the script as they exited the poppy field.

“No I didn’t,” said another child.

“I felt really sleepy.”

Joshi waited for a reply, but no child spoke up. She waited a little longer. The children remained silent, looking at her confusedly.

“Alright. Let’s follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

From there, the families entered the darkest part of the walk. Guides pointed out everything Hidden Villa had set up, from fake eyes to fake faces to the Cowardly Lion, who some children had trouble identifying, since he was crouching on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awaiting the children, after the Cowardly Lion, was a sea of white. Set up by Hidden Villa,the cotton spider webs barely hung high enough for people to crouch under and brought everyone into the Halloween mood. With the help of guides, who held up the webs with their tall group number signs, the children made it through the cotton webs unscathed. The adults also made it through, eventually, with cotton strings hanging from their hair.

At the end of the webs, a woman dressed in a black spider costume greeted them. However, this was not the average spider — she was far more intelligent.

“I am the Wise Spider,” the Hidden Villa intern said. “Ask me a question. I can spell anything, I can sing a little, I can answer any question.”

The children paused to think of the hardest question they could. Finally, a boy spoke up.

“Spell ‘cat’,” he said.

“C-A-T.”

The boy stared in awe, bested by this Wise Spider.

After asking the spider several more questions, the children moved onto their next stop: the Wizard of Oz. Parents would be allowed to take pictures of their children with the Wizard. But there was a problem. Unbeknownst to the guides, the group before them was still at the Wizard of Oz. Luckily, two guides came to save them.

“I’m a traveler from a different world,” said Krissy Ikeda, a volunteer from Los Altos High School, in an attempt to stall for time. “See? I’m wearing all black.”

However, the children were not impressed. In the dark, everyone’s clothes looked black.

In an attempt to continue stalling, the volunteers told several jokes before realizing that joke-telling was not their biggest strength.

“Why was the cat always a little fat?” asked one volunteer. Too late, her eyes glance between the other volunteers, silently asking for help with coming up with a punchline. Receiving no help, she let the joke go without a punchline. Nevertheless, the children laughed.

Finally, they heard it: “Who arrives at my front door?”

The intern dressed as the Wizard of Oz was welcoming them. The guides had saved the children from realizing that fourteen other groups were trying to find Dorothy with them.

“We’re going to go one at a time,” he said.

“Can I go first?” said a child.

“I’m going next,” said another. Soon, four children were scrambling toward the hot air balloon. To avoid chaos, the Wizard stopped them in their tracks.

“Now,” the Wizard of Oz said, “we’re going to do this very democratically.”

If his goal was to make the children silent, he succeeded.

“I have an important question: do you know how to get home?” the Wizard of Oz said, ready to give them treats that would magically help them find North.

“Yeah,” a boy said.

“Really? How?” the Wizard asked.

“This trail goes in a circle, and then you get to the parking lot and you can get on a car to go home.”

“Well,” said the Wizard, eyebrows furrowing slightly, thinking of a way to recover the magical mood. He decided to ignore the witty comment altogether. “Whether you know how to get home or not,I have a treat for you so you can always find your way North.”

The Way Home

The last stop before the guides led the families to the end of the walk was the home of the Good Witch. Along the way, guides tried to keep the families on the right path, using their voices, hands, and group number signs to keep the children in line. At one point, Joshi had to convince a small girl that they’d still be “going North” if they turned left. Finally, they saw a woman dressed in a white and pink dress and crown, who greeted them with a smile on her face. 

She tapped a boy in a black robe and glasses on his head with a magic wand.

“Are you a good witch?” said the Good Witch. “Or a bad witch?”

“I’m Harry Potter.”

And with that, the Good Witch explained the Dorothy way of going home, and the children obediently tapped their heels together three times. She sent them off with a piece of candy each, and the children followed the guides across the long, dark final stretch.

“When will we meet the bad witch?” asked the child dressed as Harry Potter.

“Maybe soon, maybe never. Who knows? But you never want to meet a bad witch,” Joshi explained, like a mother explaining good and bad as the children stared up and listened attentively. “They’re bad, you know.”

As they walked the last stretch of the walk in the dark, the children couldn’t rely on their eyes, or candies pointing North, or cars to take them home.

They relied on their guides.