The Candy-fication of Congo

I swear when we first got to this country, there was no candy. Okay, every once in a while you could find an old candy bar, but once you opened it, it was pale and flaky. I thought Congo had really reached the top when I got good cosmetic dentistry this year, but now I'm shocked at the amount of candy the kids got for Halloween. Congo has been candy-fied. What's left on this strange road to development?

Last week Jill anticipated our night of trick-or-treating. And our friends/neighbors did not disappoint.

Sure, that's a lot of candy. But let's take a look at where Congo's candy is coming from these days.

In years past, this is what most of the standard Congo candy has looked like. Off-brand European and/or European gummy.

Lutti and Everyday.

But check out the South American contingent this year:

Those are Fruit Rolls from Brazil and Colombina candy from -you guessed it- Colombia.

Fizzers from South Africa have hit big time here:

Fizzers. With the tagline: "What colour person are you?" Seriously.

Then we have the Italians who are sending us these:

Made in Vietnam and India, respectively, but imported from Italy.

Parle Poppins straight from India:

No middle-man here.

The Brits are pulling their weight too. Pun intended.

Nestle and Mars represent, but not the American versions.

Here are the ones you know and love.

Pretty sure those Starburst were specially "imported" via suitcase and those 3 varieties of M&M's are from the UN employee-only store. Our trick-or-treaters are just that special.

If you don't have that kind of access, there's always Nik-Naks.

A Congo rip-off of these British ones, which are a rip-off of Cheetos. All puffy, cheese stick-like things surely have American heritage. 

And then we have the Stateless candies:

Poor homeless lollipops. Won't someone claim them?

But the prize for cutest bon-bon goes to these guys from the Netherlands:

Napoleons are apparently a really big deal with quite the following.

And there you have it. Who would have ever guessed our kids' trick-or-treat bag would be so cosmopolitan? Of course our children won't actually get to eat all of this. The rest will go home with the mamas so their kids can rot their teeth too. Now I think I'm beginning to understand the relationship between our sudden candy access and better Congolese dentistry...