Halloween

Last week was a very busy week for Caleb and me. We both got involved in our schools’ Halloween parties. The week before on Friday, one of my CPs said “Let’s have a Halloween party!!!” Unfortunately, she was the most excited about it and she was sick all last week. She couldn’t help plan it or do anything at all.

Me as a ghost and some of the decorations

So my other CPs did a lot to throw this party together. It took place on Thursday evening. The students helped decorate. We had minimal decorations due to lack of funds and availability of Halloweeny stuff. White toilet paper can go a long way though. We used it to turn the gym door into a mummy and some of the teachers wrapped up a volleyball and hung it from one of the basketball hoops as a scary ghost head thing. It was creative. We drew Halloween pictures on cups and dispersed them through the gym. We also had some things that Caleb brought from his school, like little paper ghosts and a skeleton he drew and named Gentleman Bones. Gentleman Bones is now hanging in our apartment.

Gentleman Bones

Throughout the week, students were told to prepare a Halloween poster, a pumpkin, and costumes. There would be competitions among each class for the first two and an individual costume contest.

2nd place poster winner

The party was scheduled to begin at 7. The students didn’t make their entrance until about 8:30. I was slightly annoyed by this, but I spent this extra time wisely, haunting the school’s hallways making eerie ghost sounds in my costume. I scared some kids. It was great.

We started the party with some music and dancing, and then we watched Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video. After that, I taught a dance to those who were interested based off of Thriller. I think they enjoyed it. Then more dancing. And a tongue twister competition. “Creepy crawler critters crawl through creepy crawly craters.” Two students from each class participated. Some of them were really good at it.

Students in their costumes

After that, we did a relay race between classes. There were 5 students from each class. The first did a sack race from one point to another. The second student had to run circles around a basketball – 15 times. This wasn’t my idea. The students said 15. After they did their circles, they had to shoot the basketball. This took a long time, but it was hilarious. Some kids just fell over. Some kids hurled the ball in the complete opposite direction as it should have gone. Once they finally made the basket, the next student had to blow up a balloon. Then the last two students had to run from one end of the gym to the other with the balloon in between them, without touching it with their hands. Then they had to pop it between them once they crossed the finish line. This was quite entertaining to watch, especially since I wasn’t involved at all. Up ‘til this point, I had taught a dance and conducted and judged a tongue twister competition. It was nice to just watch.

Watermelon Jack-o-Lantern

After this there was more dancing, and my CPs and I decided how to judge the costume, pumpkin, and poster contest. We worked it out and presented the awards. I didn’t judge the pumpkin contest, so I don’t know who won, but there were only two entries. One was a pumpkin, but the other was a carved watermelon. I hope that one won. Like Gentleman Bones, those two items stayed in our apartment until after Halloween.

The costume contest winners

After a bit more dancing, the kids all departed. It didn’t take long to clean up, and we were walking out at around 10. It was a long day. That was Thursday the 29^th.

Students dancing

Saturday on Halloween, Caleb, Kyra (another PCV in our city), and I decided to go for a hike across the steppe to a nearby mountain. The majority of our walk was across flat land. We were very chirpy on the way to the mountain. We left around 9:30 and got to the mountain around 12:30. It didn’t take long at all to get to the top. It wasn’t that big. We ate lunch and hung out at the top taking pictures for about an hour and then started heading back home. Walking back was okay at first, but then we started to feel it. The last hour or two was pretty torturous. Caleb estimates we walked about 12 miles total. We got back home at 5ish, and we were so happy to sit down.

Thriller pose on top of the mountain

That evening we, along with Ian (another PCV in Khentii) went out to eat and came back home to watch some scary short films and a thriller movie.

And that was pretty much our Halloween. I decorated our apartment a little bit, turning our mosquito net into a giant spider web in the living room, and we put up trash bag spider webs on the walls, toilet paper streamers in the entryway and into the kitchen, and of course our carved pumpkin, watermelon, and Gentleman Bones.

It was a pretty good holiday altogether. We have now been in Mongolian for a full 5 months. It’s hard to believe. Happy November everyone!

~Sally