Happy Halloween!

I'm sorry I didn't post this last night, but I had to help run the gigantic Halloween party for our middle school classes.

To begin where I last left off, Tuesday night was low-key. I watched Mulan with Jackie in her room and then went to bed. I woke up on Halloween morning and put on my black t-shirt with some orange mesh shorts and my orange Hobart hat. It was raining out and I was praying so hard that it would stop because our party was going to be very wet otherwise. In true Halloween fashion, there were huge drops of blood all over the stairs in my dorm. We later found out that there was a huge fight on Tuesday night on the fifth floor. I prayed for the people who had gotten their faces smashed in and then dragged themselves down the stairs. In true Vietnamese fashion, however, some of the spots still have not been cleaned up and I dodge them very time I use the stairs.

On the brighter side, I talked to Andy online and that was good because it's always good to keep in touch with people you are constantly missing. Afterwards, I grabbed an egg sandwich and headed off to Vietnamese class. Class was ok and we got through it and left at 11:00. I came back to the dorm and got DiDi and a bunch of us went to lunch at our usual rice buffet place. By 11:45 I was back in the dorm and trying to work out my costume. Tica let me borrow her white button-up collared shirt and I tried it on with my blue pants and red scarf. Along with my glasses, I looked like a Vietnamese student. Costume/Mission accomplished for zero dong. Priceless. Along the way, Becca asked me if I had an eye patch for her pirate costume. She was ecstatic to find that I had indeed brought my pirate eye patch and would loan it to her. :)

I then came back to my room, showered, shaved, and packed my backpack for the night's festivities. DiDi and Monica met me on the second floor at 1:30 pm and we took the 8 bus to the lake. They went to a coffee shop and I headed to the ATM in the mall and then to the post office. There were eight people "ahead of me" at the international package desk, but there are no lines in Viet Nam. I just asserted myself and got the paperwork to send two packages to America. After an hour, the papers were all filled out for customs and I sent them off. By then it was 3:00 and I went back to the big mall and rode the escalators to the fifth floor. I quickly found the shampoo aisle and located some Dove conditioner. Since my hair is so long now (I'm growing it out for Locks of Love), I have to use conditioner about once a week in order to keep it nice and under control. I was in a hurry to get to Trung Vuong, my school, and bought the conditioner and high tailed it down the block to the school. I made it by 3:15 and waited a few minutes for my fellow teachers. When they arrived we set down all of our bags of candy and decorations and set to work. I blew up balloons, hung Choco Pies from strings (instead of doughnuts), and then helped set up the haunted house. The mothers were so helpful that they were almost getting in the way. They also insisted they string up almost all of the Choco Pies at once, which ended up being a disaster later. They eventually brought us sandwiches at 6:45 and I changed into my costume. The kids thought it was pretty funny that I was dressed up like they usually are. I was glad they understood and appreciated the humor.

The party began with some signing and performing by the kids and then by one famous singer mother. During that time, I took DiDi, Brittany, and Cathy to see the haunted house. We fixed a slight electrical problem with the strobe light and the cd player with the scary noises soundtrack and I returned to the festivities at the front of the school. Instead of following the given directions, however, the children and their parents did whatever they wanted. Half of them did not go trick-or-treating and then to the haunted house while the other half played the games (mummy wrap relay, face painting, bobbing for apples, Choco Pie eating) and made candy apples. Everybody just did what they wanted when they wanted. I stayed with a couple hundred people as they bobbed for apples and then dipped them in caramel. I then discovered that our supervisor was trying to control the situation but it was total chaos. I told her it was ok because nobody was getting hurt and everybody was having a great time. Then I helped her organize a group to go through the haunted house and trick-or-treat at some of the classrooms. A couple hundred people followed me through the open courtyard in the middle of the school and they ended up loving the haunted house. I sent some of them trick-or-treating at the different rooms but some of them were abandoned by the Vietnamese teachers by that point.

At 9:00 pm everybody gathered before the stairs in front of the school and our supervisor, Thuy, took control of the mic. After ten minutes we had organized all of the costumed children (and some of their mothers) into a huge line. They snaked around part of the school building and walked by us, the costume contest judges, twice. On the second time around, we placed stickers on the children with the best costumes for the categories--funniest, original, creative, colorful, best parent costume, and sexy (added by the children). After they had gone through the line, we brought up the kids with the most stickers and presented them with prizes and framed certificates, which they loved. I took lots of pictures and made sure to tell the kids who ended up not winning that I really liked all of the work they did on their costumes.

Just when I thought the party was done at 9:45 pm, Thuy reminded me that we still needed to pull about 20 numbers for the raffle. Some of the people with smaller and tired children had already left, so it took quite a while to pick the numbers with winners still remaining at the school. It ended after about 20 painful minutes of standing by and handing out the prizes. They then presented us with some goodies and by the time everything was over at about 10:15, I left in a taxi with Will. I had fun at the party but it was extremely draining. It was also the most homesick I've ever been on the trip so far, since all of the families, games, costumes, and food made me remember Halloween parties in the pit of St. Peter's. Nostalgia and homesickness are apparently a very bad concoction.

DiDi called Will's cell when we arrived at the dorm and I got a xe-om to Lighthouse. He got lost, of course, and then tried to charge me an extra 10,000 dong. He finally realized I knew what he was trying to pull and gave me back all of my rightful change. I met Sarah, Brittany, and DiDi at Lighthouse, but there were some Swedish and Vietnamese guys beat-boxing and rapping. We were bored and tired and left after only 30 minutes. In an attempt to avoid getting ripped off for our xe om ride home, we asked a few guys what they'd charge us and walked away when it was too much. One guy drove back to meet us after reconsidering and grabbed me in an attempt to get my attention. That just made me angry. Then he was a crazy driver. I didn't want to pay him anything when the drive was over and we were back at our dorm. He didn't deserve anything.

When we got back to the dorm at quarter to midnight we woke up the guard and he unlocked the gate for us. I went to my room and cleaned up a bit before grabbing a huge grapefruit and bringing it to DiDi's room. Brittany, DiDi, and I shared the grapefruit as I peeled it and cut it and then I cuddled with DiDi for a bit. We fell asleep quickly and I woke up at 4:00 am to go back to my room and sleep.