The beginning of the end

Thursday was a very sad day for me. I said goodbye to my first student, Jonathon, who is moving to the States for the rest of the school year. Jonathon is a great student, always eager to help out or give an answer. We sent him off with a pile of homemade cards and a cup of ice cream.

One last picture of my "whole class" (The other teacher is Miss Johnson, my student teacher)

Being your typical boy, the last thing Jonathon did before leaving was find a huge walking stick (bug) to share with me.

I've lost students before in the middle of the school year, and while it's always hard, for some reason this time it was especially heartwrenching. I think maybe because I know there is very little chance that I'll ever see him again, or maybe because it kind of marks the beginning of the end of my time here. After all, this is the first week of our last quarter. Nine more weeks and it will be over! I'm trying not to dwell on the fact that I'm leaving, but focus instead on the time I have left.

I'm starting to brainstorm for kinder graduation (something else I was definitely not prepared for!). In the past the teachers really went all out, putting on a play with memorized lines and everything. Since I value my sanity, I've decided we'll just sing some of our favorite songs and recite some Bible verses. Then we'll end the program with a slideshow that I'll put together with the pictures I've taken throughout the year. Hopefully that will be a little less work and a lot less stress!

I've still got so much more I want to do before I leave...I think I need to make a list so I don't leave anything out. Let's see:

- travel to some of the other towns outside Santa Cruz

- take a ride in one of SAM Air's planes

- see the waterfalls near Samipata

- visit the orphanage that my housemate Dovanna works at

- See the sand dunes (hopefully on a day that's not too windy)

- visit Elliott in San Javier

- go to the butterfly park for photo ops with the amazing insect life

hmm...how many more weekends do I have? See, the trouble is you can't really make plans in Bolivia. You can have ideas of what you'd like to do, but actual plans just do not always happen the way you, uh, plan. Oh well, God knows what I'm really supposed to do and see before I leave, right? So what am I worried about?