our+stories

Halloween! Halloween is a celebration day, one day before all saints holly day, all hallows day. You can find parties in different parts of the world. Their religious calendar was a night at the beginning of winter when they believed the spirits of dead people could return to walk the earth. When I was a kid I remember some women made decorations, emptied a pumpkin and put a candle inside ,and cut a mouth and eyes into the skin to make a scary threatening face. Children, sometimes dressed as ghosts or witches or in some other Halloween costume, go around knocking on people’s doors on the evening of October 31st and asking for small treats; usually sweets or money. Someone’s kids when they looked at the Halloween costumes start crying. Some people laughed and tell a joke or sing a song in return for their treat. Normally therefore trick or treaters receive a lot of sugar during the evening, meaning Halloween is possibly the worst event in the year for the children’s teeth.
 * __by Milka__**

A Long time ago some thing super natural happened to me. My sister and I had an experience when my dad died about 6 pm. We saw a man who was walking to my home when he was close to us we looked at him with surprise, he was my dad who was supposed to be working in another country. But when the man stood in front of us we found out that it wasn’t my father but the post man who brought a telegram. We went to the post office and my sister spoke by telephone with some body and this person said that my dad had died. When we came home we heard a big noise in the kitchen, all the dishes were on the floor, broken in pieces; nobody was home, no pets or anything that could have done this. The only explanation to all this is super natural, that my dad was trying to say some thing. After we found out that my dad died from an accident, he was fixing his truck after it came from a long journey, he was under the lorry trying to repair the gear box because it was not changing smoothly from one gear to another, then suddenly the gear box fell on my dad’s head, it is sad the way he died I could not believe it, perhaps neither could he and so he came back to tell us?
 * __by Lois__**



There are different kinds of events in different countries. In my home country, we have Mid-Autumn Festival or Lantern Festival around October each year. It is such a great festival for the whole family to come together to celebrate the full-moon. People usually buy a variety of fruit which are only sold in this special period in the market. Fruit are almost the main food for each family in this festival and they are also harvested in this season. Apart from the fruit, children love playing lanterns which are made of different types of materials, such as paper, plastic etc. The most common and traditional lanterns are made of paper with different colours and shapes. The shapes can be circle, triangle, oval or animal. In a lantern you can put a candle in it and light it up. Children enjoy taking their lanterns to the park with their family when it is getting dark. You will see various types of lanterns shining in the park making a beautiful picture. Also, a special food for this festival called moon-cakes are eaten, they taste sweet. People like eating moon-cake while they are admiring the full-moon. I don’t like moon-cake because it is too sweet.
 * Mid-Autumn Festival**
 * __by Annie Chan__**

Halloween in my country Halloween is very popular in Quebec, Canada. I think it’s popular because it’s one of the big events in the United States which is the neighbouring country. A lot of people celebrate Halloween although it isn’t a public holiday. When I was young, I dressed for different effects: people, animals or things, which was sometimes scary or sometimes funny, and I walked door to door to get treats. Occasionally I got too many treats that my father hid some because it’s not good for my teeth. When I was a little bit older, I went to Halloween parties which for teenagers’ was alcohol free or for young adults’ was in bars. Halloween is a time for very big parties in bars. You must dress up if you want to get in to the parties and if your dress is really good (scary or funny) you’ll have a chance to win a prize! And at my age, which it’s not too young, not too old and with no kids yet, Halloween is a time to give treats to the young kids who knock on my door. It’s not usual, but the last Halloween some workmates wore fancy dress at the office where I worked. Halloween is at a good time of the year at the end of October, leaves fall off the trees and everywhere it’s nearly grey, which is perfect for scary stories. It’s especially a good time of the year because almost every house and shop are decorated for Halloween and you don’t see Christmas decorations before November, not like here!
 * __By Lewis__**

My grandmother lives on a farm, and when I was younger my family usually went to visit her in school holidays and my cousin too. On the farm we don’t have electricity and my cousin always made jokes at night with our shadows, one day when we were going to sleep and playing all together in one room, we saw some shadows appear in the hall. Immediately we were frightened and looked at each other, our family had gone to a party and we were alone. We thought someone had returned from the party but they hadn’t. We tried to find some explanation about the shadow, we asked our family in the morning if maybe someone had come back home and returned to the party, but in all the time we were alone the shadows stayed with us. Since this day we never played again with the shadows and until this day some times my shadows scare me.

After this event, my grandmother always said wherever you are, you are never alone… your shadows always stay with you.

**By: Raquel cardenas lengua**

I have heard lots of ghost stories when I was in China. All the stories are scary; I will just choose one to share with everybody. About 500 years ago in China, the people must read a lot of books and develop more knowledge and take a serious test if they wanted to be an official or wanted to serve the government. The test was held in the capital city. Every one must go there to have the test. One poor student was on the way to the city it was very far and he had to sleep in a small town. His house was 5 days walk from the city. When he was in the town, he couldn’t find a suitable hotel to live in because he has no more money. Where could he sleep? A person in the town saw he looked so worried then asked why. After he knew the reason, the person told him if he wasn’t scared there was a place he can sleep in without any money. It was a house only 10 minutes walk from here. But no one dare to live there because cause lots of people have heard the sound of a ghost at night, when some brave man went in, he never left. No one knew he was there but the man who had told him was too scared to speak a word. The student couldn’t believe there was a ghost in the world, and then he moved in. It was a big house located in a big block. When the student opened the door, there were half a metre of weeds in the yard, when the wind blew through, only a noise of old doors and windows could be heard. He thought this was a good place for study; nobody could come here and bother him. Nothing happened in the first night, except the wind. On the second night when he was studying in the middle night, he heard a knock on the door. He opened the door, to his surprise, a beautiful girl stood out side the door. She told him she lived near the house, she admired the hard studying student, and then she came in and had a look around. She offered to help him, if he liked; she could do something for him, like prepare his ink for him, his mid night snack? The student was very happy with the help from the girl. After 2 hours, the girl said she had to go and she would come to help him again in the next night. After the girl had gone, the student thought who is this girl of such beauty? During the daytime he asked people in the town, but nobody could give him an answer. He tried to draw a picture of the girl, and show to people, every one recognise she was the daughter of owner of that house, but the girl has hanged and dead ten years ago. The reason for her death was she was bulled and humiliated by a tyrant man; she felt so bad and then hanged. Her parents were so sad that they can’t live in that house again. They moved to another place to live. After that time, no body lived here and somebody can hear some sound at night in that yard. Everyone think the pity dead girl’s soul went out and want find the tyrant person and scared them.
 * __By Helen__**

In 1996 on October in my country KABILA Laurent regime force reverse MOBUTU Congolese president ,people didn’t like that, On November 1996,KABILA regime force from Rwanda began together male people packed them in sacs and threw them into TANGANIKA lake in UVIRA KIVU region, on the other hand they took females gather them in church closed the door and put fire and finally they took children along the road and cars killed them

Local people were un happy and they made pangas knife spear and began to kill KABILA soldiers

Now Uvira people are in peace. .

Draft by Sumail