The cold came back and I am starting to believe the rumor that your 2nd winter is worst because you know exactly what to expect. Its only November and I am already running my 100 year old gas pech (heater). Thankfully the thing is powerful and heats up the room enough for me to be comfortable in. We’ll see how I feel about that, come March, the most miserable month in Peace Corps.
School is going all right, relatively speaking. I don’t go as much as last year, but I know what I am doing and my teaching has significantly improved. Plus, I just organized a huge event which turned out to be really fun for kids and teachers. The event was called the “Halloween Extravaganza” and I set up a carnival type celebration with different booths and activities. To help, I invited twenty volunteers to run the activities and help me lead groups of students around.
The stations included: Bobbing for Apples, Mask Making, Fortune Telling, Candy Trivia, Learn-A-New Game, and a Haunted House. I originally estimated for about 60-80 students to show up and was a little overwhelmed when the final count was around 130. The five group leaders (including myself) ended up being a bit overpowered. 
Since I am not a huge child fan (especially screaming ones) by the time we were done I literally wanted to pull my hair out. 5th to 9th graders are out of control everywhere but in Azerbaijan they don’t even know how to form a line! Students would get upset if they weren’t the first ones picked for an activity, not understanding that everybody will get a turn. At one point some of the IDP children started fighting and that’s when I almost lost it and was about to let the rage loose. Either way the event ended up being an utter success, and the Haunted House, which we made, blew everyone away. We bought black fabric to black out the windows and create compartments within the room. Then we had students walk in by two’s and go touch some “intestines” and “eye balls,” to get them grossed out. Following they ran through a compartment where a skeleton holding a severed head would chase them out, and finally they would walk through the haunted domain where a ghost jumped out at them spraying them with silly string. The room was complete with a creepy soundtrack cycling through the themes of The Exorcist, Halloween, and Psycho. Some kids were really afraid and some 5th grade girls refused to go in. Here is where I get to throw a special shout out to my college best friends who all sent decorations, candy, and costumes for this event. It couldn’t have happened without you!! After the event we all gathered in the dark, and had drinks to congratulate ourselves. It was dark because when its windy the town shuts the power off, needless to say there was a windstorm that night and electricity came around noon the next day.
Jason, Sarah and I (site mates!) the Lenkaran Halloween Party.
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