Ninja Halloween

I’m generally not a fan of holidays, especially when I’m required to dress up, but this year I really did enjoy Halloween with my students. My 28th Halloween was their first.

The day before the class as a whole was sure they’d be unable to get costumes. They explained they’d never done Halloween before and that outside of the capital there simply weren’t any costumes for the finding. In their minds, a costume was a purchased item. Calming their fears, I told them they’d need only to be creative and paint their faces, use clothing from home. It’s more fun, I explained, when you’ve created your costume.

The next day, I showed up to class to discover a room full of pirates and mummies and gangsters and superheroes and masked ghouls and women of devilish dispositions. Faces were hidden behind paint, masks and ear to ear smiles. As I entered the classroom, they swarmed me, yelling: “Boo!” and “Wa ha ha!” I doubled over in laughter.

Not yet disguised, partly in dread fear of my own humiliation, they asked: “You do not wear costume, Mr. Gerlach! Why?”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I have a costume. It’s in the teacher’s room next door, but I won’t wear it until later.”

You’d think I’d just told them that Chinggis Khan was Chinese. “NO! NO!” they roared. “NOW! YOU MUST PUT ON NOW!”

Caving in to peer pressure, I went across the hall and changed. When I re-entered, I was greeted by a roomful of uncontrolled laughter and flashing phone cameras. “What are you?” one student asked.

“I’m a ninja” I said, as I let fly my tinfoil-clad cardboard sword. Somehow I don’t think it was my weapon that caught their attention. It might rather have been the black, almost skin-tight long underwear get up covering me from head to toe.

I had to go with it. I got into character and attacked the pirates. The students loved it.

“Now what should we do?”

“We scare other classes!”

And with that, our dark army entered the hallway. We gathered and readied ourselves and then charged into a nearby classroom taught by one of my counterparts. Lightly pushing each other, we screamed them into confusion. I, on the other hand, knowing that if this was a one time deal, was going to make the most of it. As the students’ scares softened, I ran about the room swinging my sword, calling out: “Hee yah! Hee yah!” I went after sitting students. I chopped down my counterpart.

On our way out, we parted with: “Happy Halloween!”

That attack plan repeated until we’d scared all of the classes on the third floor. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Next was apple-bobbing. Seventeen of us, students and teachers alike, put our faces into the cold water to retrieve the apples. The event brought to their faces a genuine, childlike joy, a Halloween innocence that I’ll never take for granted again. I stood back and thought: now this is a great Peace Corps moment. I might have an undependable memory, but those smiles are going to be hard to forget.

After exchanging a little candy, we cleaned up the party and I went back to my office.

Twenty minutes later, as I was chatting with my counterpart about Halloween, there came a rap on the door. It was the students, sans costumes. “What’s up, everybody?” I asked. Instead of a reply, they all looked at each other and giggled. I lowered my head and continued whatever I was working on. I heard camera clicks. I looked up and gave a perplexed smiled. Arms extended, half of them were clicking away. I felt like a celebrity. Then, a few stood behind me. Cameras flashed again. Finally, they collectively gathered round me and asked Suvda, my counterpart, to take a group shot. I gave her my camera too.

To this day, the students haven’t explained to me the post-party photo shoot. Whatever their reasons, that picture is one of my favorites of me with them. I’m really going to miss them when I go back to America.