Sentimental Goodbyes

It is blistering hot. Hell hot. The humidity crushes down on  you, slashes you, then slaps you around a bit.  Like other normalcies in this particular country, the heat and blue skies come unexpected after  weeks of rain, flood, thunderstorms, wet ankles and overcast skies. But today is picturesque, stunning, a snapshot from the deck of a lakehouse in Ontario.

It's my last day of teaching summer camp in Korea (perhaps forever) and I defy my principal's expectations and walk into school in blue jeans and sunglasses, every step a mission, the heat an unaccustomed weight on my being.  The school is mostly deserted except for a handful of administration staff and the few kids who are signed up for a week long camp. I walk up the dirt and sandy pathway because there is no grass in Korean schoolyards and little pebbles get stuck between my feet and sandals. The trees lining the front of the school bark furiously.  The cicadas clicking their wings in the branches try their effort to pound a rhythm of sound against the raging mad humidity. 

In the foyer, I switch my outdoor shoes for indoor slippers and unlock the classroom before heading to my office and cooling down with a tiny table fan.  My coworkers haven't arrived yet and it's just me at my desk with an abnormally beautiful day outside my window, a two week vacation staring me in the face, and my last Asian adventure before I return home. Start over.

I've never been the one to get sentimental at goodbyes.  And I never have been since the day I packed up and left for university six years ago, but today as I sit here at my office desk waiting for 4:40 to signal the end of a hard worked semester, I am sad.  When I return from Indonesia, I will have three months to pack up two years of life and growth and say goodbye to a continent.  There are a handful of friends here that have made mornings brighter and monotonous days doable.  They have sustained me and when the time comes to hug them goodbye, I might just crumble.

And then there are the kids.  Yes, the kids too. The same ones that make me laugh uncontrollably until I cry and the same ones that get me fiery mad until I again, cry.  The kids that hug me, the kids that hate me, the kids that are so stupid it kills me, and the clever ones that outsmart me.

4:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCmVeaYCi7k&feature=player_embedded