Final Days

This time every year is a strange time for me. Each spring, teachers say goodbye for the summer like it is any other weekend. “Have a great holiday!”. However, in the back of my mind I know that I will be seeing them again in the fall. Really, it’s only two months. Most times, I play some golf, go camping or have a BBQ with the ones that mean a lot to me.

This year, however, is a weird time. The teachers I am saying goodbye to are leaving for Spain, Germany, Canada and South Africa. One teacher is heading to Thailand- so he’ll still be in the neighbourhood. Chances are, I will not see them ever again- and like always, its just a simple “Goodbye!”.

To make matters worse, the school is being packed up. Literally. Air conditioners, white boards, bookshelves, everything. They have purchased 1600 boxes to get the packing done and think there might be more then 2000 by the time all the stuff is packed. In my science lab alone there must be more then 50.

Today, they started to take the playground equipment down. Not such a bad thing although Caden was playing on the swings as they started. He began to cry. This whole thing is really tough on all of the kids in the school.

Tomorrow, we have to say goodbye to the security guards, the ‘Bees’ and all of the Indonesian staff that has been so wonderful to us. They have a difficult situation. Many of them have been here since the school opened over 20 years ago. Packing up their school is really wearing on them. To top it all off, after they are done packing they are all fired. Nice.

One nice thing is that the grade 9 and 10 class invited all of their teachers out for a great dinner. They met us at the door, walked us to the tables, bought wine (not the cheap shit, either) and beer for all of us, etc. All in all, I’ll bet they dropped $1000 on us. It is a tradition of theirs. After our year, it was exactly what we all needed. It was much better then our actual staff party which included us going to the place where the new school will be, go through the indoctrination and be told how wonderful the new school will be. “What a shame none of you will be part of it” we were told. To top it off, at about 9:00 pm, we were told that the bus was there to pick us up and take us home. That was after we saw two new jugs of beer arrive. We were carted off and the beer was never drank- shame. Let’s just say the kids know how to entertain much better then the adults, around here.