Halloween in Ukraine
As you can imagine Halloween is not a holiday celebrated in this country and thankfully so, for then I could exploit it to the hilt, making the same lesson plan for all of my 5 classes and 2 clubs. Things like Halloween are priceless for me, especially when combined with the strange gummy worms that turned students' tongues, teeth, and lips black. Trick-or-treat indeed.
Besides giving about 90 talks about Halloween, I also got to participate in the English Club's annual Halloween party which included tons of spooktacular decorations, kids dressed up, and of course, candy.
For the "adult" club that the volunteers run, I was asked to play hostess while we did a variety of games (like find the punchline to Halloween jokes: what instrument does a skeleton play? A trumbone. Get it. Ha! Hilarity!) Of course, I had to go in costume and the best I could do on such notice (I have in Ukraine only a few of my things and certainly left any and all costumey things at home) was to dress up like a cowgirl because my sitemate has a penchant for plaid shirts, and I own jeans and rope. It was lame. And I think that the Ukrainians were expecting something...well....frightening. They think of Halloween as witches, vampires, werewolves, monsters, and Frankensteins. Not some grown up trying to dress up like she would on any other day except with a rope and her sitemate's shirt. Oh well.
It was a lot of fun though and tons of photos were taken. If you ever happen to come and visit this English club you can see for yourself what a good time everyone had.
Before I left, there were cameras a plenty brought out. Sometimes being a Peace Corps Volunteer is like being a minor celebrity (hey, wasn't that the guy who was in that deoderant commerical? Go get his autograph! It's sorta like that.). Besides the game and general fun we had during club, the other really neat thing that happened was that they gave me a small jack-o-lantern. This may not really seem like anything exciting to any of you, but to me it was a small gesture the reminded me of home. I took it home, lit the candle and put it in my window, wondering what my neighbors across the small courtyard in the other identical Soviet-style apartment building would make of it, if anything at all. Small pleasures, small pleasures. Now onto Thanksgiving, where I again will be able to stretch one lesson plan into five!
Besides giving about 90 talks about Halloween, I also got to participate in the English Club's annual Halloween party which included tons of spooktacular decorations, kids dressed up, and of course, candy.
For the "adult" club that the volunteers run, I was asked to play hostess while we did a variety of games (like find the punchline to Halloween jokes: what instrument does a skeleton play? A trumbone. Get it. Ha! Hilarity!) Of course, I had to go in costume and the best I could do on such notice (I have in Ukraine only a few of my things and certainly left any and all costumey things at home) was to dress up like a cowgirl because my sitemate has a penchant for plaid shirts, and I own jeans and rope. It was lame. And I think that the Ukrainians were expecting something...well....frightening. They think of Halloween as witches, vampires, werewolves, monsters, and Frankensteins. Not some grown up trying to dress up like she would on any other day except with a rope and her sitemate's shirt. Oh well.
It was a lot of fun though and tons of photos were taken. If you ever happen to come and visit this English club you can see for yourself what a good time everyone had.
Before I left, there were cameras a plenty brought out. Sometimes being a Peace Corps Volunteer is like being a minor celebrity (hey, wasn't that the guy who was in that deoderant commerical? Go get his autograph! It's sorta like that.). Besides the game and general fun we had during club, the other really neat thing that happened was that they gave me a small jack-o-lantern. This may not really seem like anything exciting to any of you, but to me it was a small gesture the reminded me of home. I took it home, lit the candle and put it in my window, wondering what my neighbors across the small courtyard in the other identical Soviet-style apartment building would make of it, if anything at all. Small pleasures, small pleasures. Now onto Thanksgiving, where I again will be able to stretch one lesson plan into five!
posted by Molly | 3:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home