Happy Halloween! (Scott)

Well, we may be tucked far away in the corner of a central Asian country and our city may be shut down because of this H1N1 craziness, but dangit, it was Halloween and we wanted to celebrate! On Saturday the four of us Olgii PCVs – plus Kala, our one Kazakh friend willing to risk infection – gathered at Laura’s house for some good ol’ Halloween fun. Our night was complete with costumes, decorations, games, caramel apple dip, and, of course, Mongolian and Korean beer.

Here’s the four of us Olgii PCVs. I was a mummy, Ashlee was Pippi Longstocking, Laura a sheep, and Matt a “spoiled” Mongolian basketball star.




So yeah, I used locally purchased materials – and some ingenuity – to transform myself into a mummy. Basically I wrapped myself in toilet paper and packaging tape. As Ashlee put it, and I think she was being a little too kind, my costume started off at 10, but by the end of the night it was a zero. This is because throughout the night I slowly unraveled. Parts of my costume did come in handy though -- there were a couple of spills when my wrappings were the only napkin in sight. Also, on one trip to the outhouse part of my leg wrapping fell into the toilet hole – I was obliged to leave it behind.

The night was a really good time. After a spaghetti dinner we played a game where we strung up apples from the ceiling and we competed to see who could eat their apple the fastest. It was actually a bit of a disaster – or as Laura would call it, a “shit show” – and really the only result was quite a few laughs, some ridiculous photos, and a nice little video that I’ll post below. Laura originally meant for us to bob for apples, but we didn’t have enough purified water to fill the bucket and weren’t interested in contracting giardia.



We finished the night off with a few rounds of “flip cup.” Now I haven’t really played any beer-drinking games since college, but I’m happy to report that my team won all three rounds. Mom and Dad, aren’t you proud?

Anyways, like I said it was a great night and it made being away from home during a holiday a bit easier. Here’s that video I promised. Enjoy!