Market Day

This was easily one of the saddest days of our lives. We knew this day would come, and we knew it would be tough - but it's hard to truly put into words how difficult it was to see these kids knowing it was the last time. We were blessed because we were able to teach them for such a long time, but leaving them was incredibly rough. We were both emotional wrecks. At least we got a wonderful field trip day to finish with.

We started the day off by doing something we had been waiting to do for quite a while - riding the school bus with our kids! We had to make a really tough decision to pick the bus, which meant choosing between different children. When we finally settled on the bus, we saddled up with our cameras and headed out. It was so nice to see the kids' surprised faces as they boarded the bus! I was lucky enough to have several kids from my class on the bus, and we had a great time riding back to Poly. The kids LOVED it.

We had "Market Day" - which is essentially a big role-play where the teachers all pretend to be doctors, immigration officers, pharmacists, and of course, waiters and face painters. It was a bit more demanding than our normal field trips, simply because we were the ones physically entertaining the kids the whole time, but nonetheless it was really, really fun. Miss Marie, naturally, painted faces. She did an AWESOME job, under massive time constraints, to the nature of about 2-3 minutes per kid. She made a list of choices for them to pick from, and pumped out about 80 face paintings across the course of the morning. I, on the other hand, was a restaurant waiter with our fellow coworker Brian. I got to wear a ridiculous bowtie and serve pizza and chocolate pies to the kids, all the while pretending we were in a real live restaurant. It was really fun!

After lunch time, we finished up market day by cycling through all of the classes. Then came the really, really hard part. Saying goodbye. It was too much. My Korean teacher, Sarah, had decorated our room and all of my kids wore their Halloween costumes to surprise me. They had a cake ready, and when I walked in they started singing one of our songs. I lost all control almost immediately, and I was a wreck throughout the remainder of our time. I felt even worse because by crying, I threw all of the kids off, and they didn't really know how to respond. It was just a lot of hugs, and crying. They cried too, a lot. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I know Marie went through an almost identical time. Her kids started bawling, which created a contagious mass-bawling situation, which led to further inconsolable crying by kids and teachers alike. It was just really, really sad - there's not really another way to put it. I'll miss these kids so much. As I mentioned earlier, we knew it was coming, but it's hard to realize the effect they will have on you. As far as we're concerned, they were our kids. And now we're leaving our kids, which is just tough. They are all so sweet, and I'm going to miss them beyond belief.

After we both cried until our eyes were dry, we had to go do it ALL again for the afternoon classes. Luckily, since these are older kids, they understand the situation far better. You don't get any "teacher, why you leave us?" comments, and a lot more "enjoy visiting your home, please come back" comments. Not to say the afternoon goodbyes were easy, but they were easier. During our last class, Marie and I both handed over some teaching duties to the new teachers (who were observing us teach, and getting to know the kids.) Marie face painted them, and I watched movies and played games. It was fun to get to goof around one last time. Nonetheless, I'm going to miss these kids so much. I know I say that over and over, but it's the truth. They've impacted us more than I ever thought possible, and I totally understand how people choose teaching as a profession. These kids become your kids, and you feel responsible for them. Leaving them is like leaving one of your own. It's really tough.

To wrap the whole day up, we each got dozens and dozens of hand made cards, flowers, chocolates, pictures, and gifts. It was really overwhelming. We are incredibly sad to be leaving these kids and our home, but at the same time we feel really blessed that they were part of our lives. I know we'll never forget them.

Now, it's onto the next phase: getting ready for our massive vacation, and actually leaving! We'll be departing in 36 short hours, and we are heading to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia first. We'll be there for 6 days, then we take a short flight over to Singapore, where we will stay for 3 days. After that, the meat of the journey! India! Woohoo! We'll be there for 24 days, traveling the country by train. We will be staying in 8 cities, and we expect nothing short of a full adventure. Naturally, because we are both slightly obsessive when it comes to taking pictures, we will take as many as our memory cards allow (did I mention we have 1000 from our last day? Whoa.) Being that we will be without laptop or decent internet connection for the duration of our trip, we will have a mini-hiatus from blog posting. Don't be alarmed though, fellow followers! We are taking note pads so that we can write the old fashioned way, and when we return, we shall craft a blog post for all of our activities.

We're so excited to come back to the states and see everyone! We miss our family and friends so much - just a few short weeks away now! Signing off, but only temporarily...