Happy Halloween!!! (A bit late I know)

One of the strange things about not being in America, is realizing that most of the world doesn't know about American Holidays, like the most recent one Halloween. What's even stranger is when you have to explain it. I recently taught one of my classes about Halloween, and as I reflected about it, its a damn weird holiday! I remember how odd I felt saying: "Well, we dress up as demons, witches, or super heros and knock on people's doors and ask for candy..." whaaaaat. I definitely felt weird explaining it to these Mongolian students. But they said it sounded like fun! So my fellow Mongolian English teacher decided to throw a Halloween party for 18 7th graders and asked if I could help. Heck yes! I couldn't wait to see how a culture ,who has never seen Halloween, would interpret it.

The first thing I saw when I walked into the dimly lit music room was the most spectacular costumes I would ever expect to see! Mind you there are no costumes stores or anything of the sort but these 7^th graders looked like scary little demons! All the girls teased their hair to the max, one boy found a scary mask, and all of the children painted their faces with white, black and red. The energy of the students was bursting with excitement as they were all running around; some staring at themselves in the huge mirror making scary faces, others helping their fellow demon-classemates make their hair bigger or faces scarier with more paint.

My fellow Mongolian English teacher ,Sogii, and I planned some fun Halloween games last minuet including bobbing for apples, a screaming contest, a costume contest, telling scary stories and teaching them the Micheal Jackson “Thriller” dance ( or what I could remember of it). It was one of the most memorable and fun times I have had with my students. I will post some pictures and even the video of the students doing the thriller dance on my facebook soon!