04/04/04
Returning to Emau for the last few days teaching was great - I had such fun with the kids - teaching them new games - singing and playing games - netball and football. On Tuesday my family arrived which was great but slightly surreal as it felt so normal to have them up the mountain with me! They arrived bearing a fantastic amount of donations and equipment for the school. On Thursday they accompanied me down to the school and kindergarten. It being my last day at Kindergarten I carried out my lesson and then handed out a gift to each child - kindly knitted by my uncle’s mother. They were delighted and hugged their toys to their chests trying to prevent Johnson - the kindergarten thug - from stealing them! The nun - Sister Emmy - in tears as she had been for every other day of the week and we herded the kiddies outside for a group photo - my dad was snapping away when sister started to lead the kids in a special goodbye song in English that she had taught them – well, that was the start of the tears for me and to be honest they didn't stop until today!

I had to leave for school and arrived still snivelling with the family! The teachers greeted us and we presented them with pens, pencils, seeds, books, games and sports equipment before they showed us the new desks that the coffee morning my mum organised with Althea had paid for - 2 desks in my standard 3 class room and 3 for the standard 4 classroom. All of the charts and posters that I had made and bought were up on the walls and the teachers glowed with pride. It was great. I taught my two classes and the teachers then took us all on a walk to see the African violets before lunch at the deputy head master’s house.

IBC had invited my family, Peter, Alex, Stephen and Caroline to my leaving do and we arrived at the school at around 10.00am where we were met by the entire school in the road singing - If You're Happy and You Know It - one of the songs that I taught them. Well once again the tears started - 511 kids in an entourage behind you as you make your last walk into a school is pretty haunting!

My two classes sang English songs for me and the older children sang local songs and danced for us which was great then standard 6 girls stood in a line in front of us and sang an English good bye song - 50% of them could hardly sing as the tears rolled down their faces and I had to get up from the stage and cuddle them! Then every student came up and presented me with a gift and shook my hand - bananas - eggs - green peppers and one girl gave me 100 tsh which cracked me up even further as this is just 5 pence but meant so much to her. After this the teachers presented me with gifts of spices and a kanga along with gifts for my family and made a speech - which they gave me a copy of. I had to respond to this and basically just stood up and cried - I think they realised that I was quite sad! I managed a broken thank you but it could hardly put across what I was feeling.

At the end of the presentation the students sang me an exit song and followed the car singing and shouting for about 15 minutes – running, all 500 of them.

Well, now the heartache is almost over and the last goodbye - to Stephen - will be tomorrow when we get our flight to Zanzibar. Then it's a week's rest before homeward bound. All I can think about at the moment is how quickly I can get back to my kids!