La fin de Cours d’Anglais (The end of the English Course)

Le 10 decembre   I can’t believe that it’s actually over! Just as quickly as it started, it’s done – finito. I’ve really enjoyed these last six weeks being with the students of 4th Form every weekday, four hours a day. You really get to know people spending that much time together. We laugh together, play together (I’m coming to really enjoy basketball!), laugh together, dance together. And yes, as all teachers in this world – I get frustrated with them at times and they make me want to pull my hair out, ha!

Last week, we were even able to take a hike up the nearby mountain together. The students kept asking me, so I suggested one Saturday. Well, there are students who work on the weekends. What about the afternoons? Eh, odds are it will rain at some point during the afternoon. Having received permission to take an adventure up the mountain, we set off just after 8am and didn’t get back until just noon. We had a marvelous time – and I have pictures to prove it.

Today, as it was the last day of class, I finally gave in to the plea of the students – together, we put all the tables and chairs to the side of the classroom and I turned on the cd player. We danced and danced and danced. Jacqui (the last volunteer here) had taught the students the dances to a number of songs and had left plenty of cds to dance to, and I was finally able to see their dance – her ministry in action. For hours we danced, then “took a break” to go play basketball. At the end of the day, we sang the songs we’d learned together – Silent Night and Jingle Bells (which I have on video, thank you technology) and sang our end-of-day Our Father.

Their goodbyes were maybe a bit overly dramatic, but made touched me nonetheless. They were along the lines of “thank you so much, we’ll never forget you,” instead of “thank you, we’ll see you in a few weeks when the school year starts.” It did give me a glimpse of what it will be like to leave in May, though, and I’m nervous for the day that I truly have to say goodbye. For now I’ll miss seeing their shining faces every morning but come January 10th, we will be together again.