Saying Goodbye.

        I have fallen in love with this small country in East Africa, and saying goodbye is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I arrived two weeks ago knowing I’d fall in love with the kids in my class but didn’t imagine all the beautiful things I’d fall for as well. Some things will be etched in my memories for the rest of my life: like jumping with Maasai warriors; walking into Class 3 and being greeted with twenty-seven smiling kids saying, “Good morning Teacher Grace,” in unison; or how the sky looks when the first rays of the sun come over the summit of Mount Meru early in the morning. There are also things that time will slowly take from me, like the bright yellow of the sunflower fields, how the air smells after a thunderstorm, and how the broken English of the locals sounds.
     My parents have always told me, “All good things must come to an end.” Heartbreakingly, my time in Arusha is coming to an end. I’m coming home with more than I came with; each student in my class has taught me something. Alice helped me understand the importance of laughter, Ebenezer told me that your happiness should come before everything else, Enock taught me to persevere no matter your circumstances, and Emily taught me to enjoy the little things in life. Going home, I want to honor the kids at LOAMO and the lessons I learned from them. I want to remember that laughing is essential, especially when laughing at yourself. I want to remember that I’m the only one who can let someone else make me unhappy. I want to work as hard as Enock every day, doing things I’m passionate about. I want to look at the little things in life and remember that they all add up to enhance life’s beauty.
     Before I fell in love with the kids, nine thousand miles was just a number. Now that I love them with every piece of me, it’s the number of miles between us. Saying goodbye will break my heart in two, and when I miss them more than anything else, I just have to look up and remember the sun I’m looking at is the same one they’re looking at. The moon I look at is the same moon they look at. With this, I hope I can realize that we aren’t all that far apart after all.