My students love Halloween!

Yesterday was Halloween! I took 11 of my English club students to a Halloween party put on by some of the volunteers. There was a small haunted house, which scared the crap out of some kids. Then there were games like bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving, guess the mystery item and ski ball (or skeet ball if you're Corey James.) My students absolutely loved it. After the games we all ate lunch and then each group performed a skit about Halloween (which is not really only an American holiday, my students didn't know much about it). My students did a skit about a witch stealing candy from 2 little kids. And then an angel appeared and said "abra kadabra", making the witch die and candy appear for the children. It was so funny. Then they danced to "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. I showed them the video before hand so they even included some "zombie" moves. It was amazing! We all dressed up as zombies for the dance! When we finally got home later that day, I asked my sister if she liked it and she said "I'll never forget it!" It made me realize what a special day it really was for my students. They don't get many days where they can get away and just play like kids. They are always busy, always working. It's just the nature of life in Kyrgyzstan.

After getting my students home safely, I went back into the city to Kristen's house. Patrick made us all stir fry and something with eggplant in it. It was a fun night. The guys decided since it was Halloween they needed to put their clothes on inside out (yea I'm not sure what that has to do with Halloween either). They attempted to intitiate a dance off against us girls. But the other girls wouldn't reply to their challenge. So I reluctantly joined the boys side and led an offensive against them. They gave me no choice.

This Halloween made me remember last Halloween when I hung out at Justin and Angie's house. We just sat around with our beers and our food on the balcony and pulled a string to our "ghost" rocking chair to scare kids. It was so simple but so perfect. I miss feeling so confortable with people and just in my own element.

This week is a school holiday so I don't have classes. But I am going to go in to plan with my co-teacher and also have English clubs. Hopefully I can convince my co-teacher to change the calendar plan for some of the grades. The content she has planned is just way to hard for them. We could probably take the calender plan for 7th grade and apply it to 8th- 11th grade and it would still be difficult for most of the students. And why my 9th grade students need to read about the Great October Socialist Revolution, I will never know. I am happy for a light week of work and ready for a little rest. I feel like I have been very busy lately with little time for my co-teacher and I to get on the same page. Sometimes we can spend an entire day at school together and never have time to discuss our classes. Next week is our IST in Bishkek. IST stands for something I cannot remember. But basically it a week of technical and language training. We spend the first 2 days in training sessions with our counterpart and then the last 4 with just volunteers. It will be nice break from teaching, the village and our family.