Altan Namar - the celebration that just wouldn't end

16 October 2012

I promise I haven’t died. First my computer's power cord died in September. Then when I tried to post this in October, my computer blue screened in the middle and I gave up. I haven't really had internet since. Welcome to my backlog.

Starting at the end of September, my school starting celebrating the “Golden Autumn” (Altan Namar) and it hasn't really ended since. Mongolian trees apparently only turn yellow during fall and the color lasted a long time this year, so we celebrated. The teachers were broken into teams (I got myself on the food committee after telling them I was sad that they forgot to include me) and each team had a week to prepare their activity. I didn't actually prepare anything, but I participated as best I could.

The first event involved some local farmers coming to school to talk to the different classes. To welcome them, the classes made posters about the lives and accomplishments of the visitors – and by classes I mean the teachers because I didn't see a single student involved. One of the 10th grade teachers grabbed me to take pictures of her class listening to the lecture. Turns out their speaker is the father of my old hashaa man so I'd met him before. I may not have understood anything he was talking about except the word "potato" every now and again, but it was the first time I'd ever seen Mongolian children sit and behave so I was impressed. (Though let's be honest, American children find this challenging as well)

The next day (Friday), the whole school walked out of town for about 30 minutes to have a picnic and play games to celebrate this Golden Autumn. I was drafted to help with the older grades in some of their competitions. All that ended up meaning was that I judged a song competition for 20 minutes and spent the majority of the day drinking milk tea and eating with the other teachers similarly not busy. 

10B - the winning class

looks like she's doing something bad, but just making milk tea

the teachers with our own celebration

The following Friday, there was an Altan Namar sports competition day. Because it wasn't enough that we had one the month before to celebrate the start of the new school year. Apparently in the morning, all of the teachers had a running competition but I wasn't there because I wasn't told about it. My director asked why I wasn't there and scolded me a little bit, but I looked at the poster announcing the event afterward, and it said nothing about my need to participate, only homeroom teachers', so I wasn't crazy. In the end, that's all that matters. Anyway, the morning was made up of running events, followed by many hours of a volleyball tournament. Since I'm not Mongolian and don't have the undying passion for volleyball that they have, I got bored after a few hours and left. Apparently the competition went on until 9pm and I was really glad I decided to not stay. Validation!

2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders running their first ever relay, to much confusion

11A vs. 7A, not a fair fight. plus check out the earring and faux hawk on the guy in front

The following week was food week when I was supposed to help judge or something. I never figured out what my role actually was because the two teachers in charge are two that seem to have a problem with my being here and don't talk to me. I made up my own purpose and just walked around talking to the kids and taking pictures. Every class was assigned a day to make food using local ingredients that they then sold to the rest of the school. There was a lot of potato khuushuur, cabbage salad, potato salad, and seabuckthorn juice. A lot of classes weren't prepared for their turns during the week so on the last day, a lot of classes participated. They all set up tables in the gym and the teachers, workers, students, and some parents walked around buying food. Everything was complicated by the power going out, but the food was delicious and I was more stuffed than I had been in a long time.

7A during the week

the gym setup on Friday

5B

10V

5A

Bet you thought I was done. Oh no, the title is completely serious. Just when I thought, "Altan Namar must FINALLY be finished," someone would tell me there's another week. Then I'd hit my head against a wall a couple times and brace myself for the next week's ridiculousness. But I was not alone in this - by then, the majority of other teachers were thinking of joining me in the head-bashing.

One day they told me all the teachers had work on Saturday. I don't usually go to those because nobody tells me about them until afterwards, but since I knew about it, I went. It turned out that teachers were raking up dead weeds from the school yard and burning them as well as planting more trees. I suggested weeding during the spring and summer so people could see the trees we planted but I got only blank stares in response. Also, planting trees in October didn't seem like the smartest idea to me. I mean, I woke up that morning to see this:

That can't be good for freshly planted trees.

In the FINAL dying breath of Altan Namar when we were all starting to get really irritated, there was a poetry competition. Kids were pulled out of class to compete and teachers pulled out to judge, leaving me with the the more rowdy students all by myself. Not a happy day in my life. But it signaled the welcome end to the madness. Two more pictures and we're done. Your relief mirrors what I felt last month. Buy yourself a cookie for making it through, that's what I did.

the students' poetry and stories about Altan Namar on display

poetry contest