Leaving.
`
I cannot believe this is over. I just got here. I could live here. I will live here. But right now, if there werent so many other factors, I would cancel my acceptance to NYU and just stay here.
I am coming back at the next available opportunity. Like, May.
There is so much...I can't even begin to cover it in this entry.
Yesterday was the last day with the kids. It was so sad...half the class didn't show up, and we had noone to tell them we were leaving and it was our last day. We tried in our broken swahili, but I don't think any of them really got it. "Kesho, sisi twende nyumbani - Merikani. Nitakutembelea sana sana sana..." (Tomorrow, we go home - America. We will miss you a lot a lot a lot....). I cried. I want to adopt Lightness so bad. I would want to adopt Winnie too but I know she has a good home (she lives with her grandfather John, our driver). We gave the class animal crackers and juice boxes after break before writing as a treat.
Our experience was pretty unconventional...we WERE the teachers this past week because the teacher was in Dar for her father's funeral. But we got no good-bye songs or cards like the other placements because there wasn't anyone to do that. No other teachers. No older students.
3 weeks is enough to get started. It is not enough to do anything else except get attached.
I have so many new friends to keep in touch with...Besides all the fellow volunteers, I have John, our driver, the man who I wish was my grandfather. Peter, the other driver for whom I'm going to find the cheapest saxophone I can and bring it back to him, and teach his kids how to play sax and piano. Margaret, my Swahili teacher who does safaris and donates all the money she makes into the many schools and orphanages she assists and is the sweetest woman I've ever met. All the staff here at CCS. And my kids, who I'm going to keep track of and make sure they're allright.
I don't know what I'm going to do next summer. I know I'm going to go stay at the YMCA for 6,000 shillings a night (about $5). And I have several contacts (like Margaret, like CCS, like Abbas the man we booked our weekend trips through, like James the other Swahili teacher who's also a preacher and does a lot of the same kind of things Margeret does). But I'm coming.
On a lighter note, I've also made it a personal life goal to climb Kili BEFORE the snow melts off. I have about 5 years to accomp[lish this. Diana (a fellow volunteer) is into mountain climbing, and we're gonna do some climbing in New York this year.
I am going to miss hearing all the kitchen staff singing in Swahili and their own tribal languages, talking swahili, how friendly people are and how strangers always stop to talk on the street and their faces light up when you talk to them in Swahili.
I'll post more when I get home about all the holes I have left here on this blog.
Thanks again everybody.
I cannot believe this is over. I just got here. I could live here. I will live here. But right now, if there werent so many other factors, I would cancel my acceptance to NYU and just stay here.
I am coming back at the next available opportunity. Like, May.
There is so much...I can't even begin to cover it in this entry.
Yesterday was the last day with the kids. It was so sad...half the class didn't show up, and we had noone to tell them we were leaving and it was our last day. We tried in our broken swahili, but I don't think any of them really got it. "Kesho, sisi twende nyumbani - Merikani. Nitakutembelea sana sana sana..." (Tomorrow, we go home - America. We will miss you a lot a lot a lot....). I cried. I want to adopt Lightness so bad. I would want to adopt Winnie too but I know she has a good home (she lives with her grandfather John, our driver). We gave the class animal crackers and juice boxes after break before writing as a treat.
Our experience was pretty unconventional...we WERE the teachers this past week because the teacher was in Dar for her father's funeral. But we got no good-bye songs or cards like the other placements because there wasn't anyone to do that. No other teachers. No older students.
3 weeks is enough to get started. It is not enough to do anything else except get attached.
I have so many new friends to keep in touch with...Besides all the fellow volunteers, I have John, our driver, the man who I wish was my grandfather. Peter, the other driver for whom I'm going to find the cheapest saxophone I can and bring it back to him, and teach his kids how to play sax and piano. Margaret, my Swahili teacher who does safaris and donates all the money she makes into the many schools and orphanages she assists and is the sweetest woman I've ever met. All the staff here at CCS. And my kids, who I'm going to keep track of and make sure they're allright.
I don't know what I'm going to do next summer. I know I'm going to go stay at the YMCA for 6,000 shillings a night (about $5). And I have several contacts (like Margaret, like CCS, like Abbas the man we booked our weekend trips through, like James the other Swahili teacher who's also a preacher and does a lot of the same kind of things Margeret does). But I'm coming.
On a lighter note, I've also made it a personal life goal to climb Kili BEFORE the snow melts off. I have about 5 years to accomp[lish this. Diana (a fellow volunteer) is into mountain climbing, and we're gonna do some climbing in New York this year.
I am going to miss hearing all the kitchen staff singing in Swahili and their own tribal languages, talking swahili, how friendly people are and how strangers always stop to talk on the street and their faces light up when you talk to them in Swahili.
I'll post more when I get home about all the holes I have left here on this blog.
Thanks again everybody.