An Unexpected Quick Goodbye

My husband developed a serious medical problem and needed to return to the US as as possible.  My principal said I could travel with him so with no notice I said my goodbyes today to my class.

I tried my best to say something meaningful to each one through my tears and choked up voice to let them know how proud I am of all they accomplished this year.

This is my parent representative and her daughter.

My amazing teaching partner.

Some of the Early Years staff I worked with.

We are boarding the airplane on Saturday a week and a half before the end of the school year.  We both had full-time teaching partners who will take over for us.  I am so exhausted tonight it has not really sunk in that I will be home on Sunday with my own kids.  I cannot wait to see my cat and all my spring flowers blooming in my yard.  I cannot wait to hug my best friend who has had a difficult spring.  I am so happy to be able to give my parents a load of worry off their shoulders.  I hope our flights go smoothly and my husband does not have a difficult time.  He is feeling okay on the pain medication so hopefully we can just get home and get him right in to the doctor. 

Fun Fair at our School

          Every year our school puts on a Fun Fair for a fund raiser and way to market our school.  The teachers are required to run the rides so Clint and I signed up for the bumper cars.  There were two and the track was the cafeteria floor.  At least we were out of the sun.  First thing one of the older kids rammed into one of the posts and broke a chunk of cement off.  Clint had to teach them all how to drive.  It was pretty cute.

The one on the left was one of mine.  He drove his little sister.

This pair were too little for the pool so they swam in the overflow.

An electric train ride was set-up but there was nothing to guard spectators from crossing the rails.  I heard there was a close call with a toddler.

Raffle Drawing

This is one of my students enjoying the go-karts.

She is one of mine.  This looked really fun.  The ball was in water.

One of Clint's kids on the bungee jump.

There is always a reason to dance here in Nigeria.

Hang on you have two and a half weeks left of school.  He is one of mine.

These two kids of mine scaled this dinosaur so fast I almost missed getting the picture.

A little sister of one of mine.  All the kids purchased t-shirts to wear to the Fun Fair.

          The Valuemart logo is for the grocery store owned by the founder of our school.  Many of the parents had shirts on that said they were a Surefoot parent.  At the parent-teacher meeting last week we were told the committee for the Fun Fair was short on raising funds to rent the games.  They needed 1.8 million Naira ($11,392) more beyond the 1 million they had already collected. They had to have it within 3 days to have enough time to ship the games here from Lagos.  I was so surprised they did it.  We had a lot of people show up and almost every child had a $35 bracelet on which meant they could ride any ride as many times as they wanted to.  We opened at 10 am and the raffle was over at 4:30.  The teachers were allowed to leave about 5:30.  Clint and I ran the bumper cars for about 4 hours and then they stopped working.  They were just battery powered.  We tried to charge them but it didn't help.  I was very glad we got out of the cafeteria and were able to enjoy watching our students.  They will have stories to tell on Monday.  It sounds like a good writing prompt.