Naishipai

Today was my last day at St. Andrews, and boy was it a sad day. Tomorrow is the big harambee, which is the term for a fundraiser here. Unfortunately I couldn't teach, because they were cleaning up the school, but I came for the last few hours of the day. When I got there the students were doing a bunch of different things, such as cleaning, moving dirt, putting up tents and making badges for people to wear. A group of girls were in one room singing traditional Kenyan songs and dancing which was so much fun to watch. I even jumped in and danced with them which they loved, despite my terrible dance skills. About an hour after I got there, Deb and my aunt Liz arrived for the goodbye ceremony that Peter had planned. Of course like everything else  in Kenya, it began an hour after he said it would. Good ol' Africa time, I'm going to miss it.
The whole goodbye process was easily the best and saddest part of my whole experience here. Peter said wonderful things about me, and he gave me a letter of recommendation which will be very helpful when I try to get credit for the teaching I have done here. After the letter, he gave me all sorts of presents from the school! He had me stand there, while one of my favorite students, Margaret came and dressed me up in my new presents. Included in the ensemble was a traditional Maasai (one of the tribes here) cloth, two necklaces, a bracelet, a pair of sandals and a three carved giraffe all together. Here is a picture of Margaret putting everything on.

I was also given posters by two of the students which will definitely go on my wall at college. After all of the wonderful gifts had been given, I had a chance to give a speech to all of the students which was incredibly hard to do without crying. Luckily I made it through and got a few laughs out of them with my swahili words. I don't think I realized how much I am going to miss St. Andrews and all of the students there until today. Two of the girls I have become very close with started crying which made it even harder for me. After some more speeches from several teachers and students, everything came to a close, but not before a lot of hugs and of course some pictures.

Me and Margaret with all of my lovely presents! 

If you are having trouble finding me, look for the only white person in bright red :)

Luckily, I didn't have to say any final goodbyes today because they will all be at the harambee tomorrow. But still, today was the first day that it has really hit me what I am leaving behind here. I don't know why I ever thought it would be easy to leave these students. Every time one of them came up to me today and told me how much they were going to miss me it broke my heart a little bit and it made me want to stay here forever. BUT, as Peter told the students, I am a student too, and as hard as it is for me to go, I have a duty to learn just like they do. One thing is for sure though, I need to come back here in the next few years.

OH I forgot to explain the title of the post! The students gave me a maasai name, Naishipai, meaning something along the lines of "Happy Woman" which I thought was very fitting :)