Halloween

My first great accomplishment: helping organize my school’s first student play. It was no easy feat. But with a grand total of 5 practices, 20 students performed a Halloween play in English and put together a decent little set. The finished product in no way resembled the grand productions most American high schools put on. But for these students, it was a great creative effort.

I’ll admit, I started wondering whether it was worth so much effort. The play date was postponed when 2 of the 4 original practice dates fell on the same day as our school’s basketball tournament. So the students, as well as the Mongolian director of the play, weren’t able to make it to pracitces.

But the week after the tournament, the students spent a whole day preparing a set. They made a haunted house out of black fabric and paper. They made styrofoam tombstones. After asking for costumes every practice, on show day they finally brought them in. And after asking the English teachers to translate parts of it, it also was finally completed on show day. And somehow, the show was successfuly. Of course, the gauge for success is a bit different here. No one had their lines memorized. They also didn’t know where to go. I stood behind the curtain waving frantically at the students to let them know when and where to enter, whose line it was, and when the curtain should close. And besides the translated narrators’ lines, no one watching had any clue what was going on. And when the curtain closed for the final time, all the students ran up to me and asked how it was. Then I realized they were excited about it. They did care about it. They just had a strange (and very Mongolian) way of showing it. It was only later that night that I was told it was the first play to ever be performed at the school. And finally I understood. They weren’t blowing off preparations. They had no idea what went into putting a play.

As for the rest of Halloween, the Uliastai PCVs invited their English teachers to a Halloween party. The highlights were the tombstones of each PCV that told how we died (including dieing of bird flu and drowning in an outhouse.) While the Mongolians laughed, their superstitious roots came through. It was a nervous laugh and they quickly walked away. I went as a cat (which is scarier here than in the states. Mongolians hate cats.) For the next two weeks people talked about my cat tail made out of socks. Quite possibly more impressive to some than helping put on a play.