Goodbye goodbye goodbye

My time here is coming to a close. This wont be my last post, but it will be my last post from Hanga! I will make a few more posts with a faster Internet connection at home when i can upload some video clips and more pictures from my stay here.

This weekend was full of goodbyes. Anne and I will be leaving Hanga tomorrow morning at 5 AM to begin our journey home.

Friday night was the last movie night with the kids. This week, instead of watching with only the girls, i decided i wanted to include the boys too! This means i spent all day on Friday running around Hanga getting the equipment i needed! I borrowed the projector from the Seminary, the white board from the monastery store room, a stereo and extension cord from another one of the monks, and transported it all to St. L by foot one trip at a time. In the end it was all worth it to see the excitement on the kids faces. We watched Toy Story 2 together. great film :)

Just a quick shot from our photo shoot with our friend Gaudence. The new hostel in the background under construction again...

Good looking shirt Gaudence has on, hmmm?

On Saturday night we had our goodbye bash at St. Laurent's with the kids. What a celebration! Here is the gang walking through the village on the way to school...

Getting ready for the party in Kastor's office...oh! look at the cool new signs for the classrooms! this is for Standard 1 as you can see.

The rest of the crew preparing for the party. Charlie, me, Kastor, Anne, Wilma, Eva. Lennart was riding the bike back to the hostel to get water for us to drink!

Here we are at the head table. It was pretty fun.

Before the official celebrations began, we witnessed a flag lowering ceremony with the new flagpole! It looks great, and the kids are amazing at singing the national song. They sing it twice a day. Once as they raise the flag in the morning at 7:30 and once when they lower the flag before dinner at 7.

My Standard VII girls singing their goodbye song. This was pretty emotional. more so for the girls...but my eyes weren't exactly dry either :) I will post the videos from them singing in a later post.

The evening turned out to be more of an adventure than anticipated. In the middle of the presentations/songs it started to rain. Yes we were under the pavilion, but it was POURING! I think this was the hardest and longest rain that I have experienced here in Hanga. All we could do was laugh as the mist made everyone wet even though we were sitting under a big roof! I had a good time with it.

Finally, after the presentations were finished, the DJ cranked the music and we had a BongoFlavor dance party! Take a look at the pictures. it was a blast!

Lets see how many kids Ben can pick up at once. hehe.

After the music stopped, one of my students came up to me and said, "Ben, you can DANCE!" thank you very much. :)

After the kids left to return to their dorms, the teachers continued the party in the faculty office. I only stayed for a little bit. It was getting a little crazy. But still a lot of fun.

On Sunday afternoon, since i didn't get a chance to set this up due to the downpour the night before, I set up the projector that we used to watch the movie on Friday night to show the kids the 800+ pictures i had taken at St. Laurent's over the past 8 months. It was great hearing all of their reactions as they saw themselves on the big screen!

Perhaps more fun than the slide show was the impromptu game i made up while we were waiting for it to get dark. With all of the school just sitting, waiting for something to happen and at the same time listening to music, i thought to myself, this would be a great time for musical chairs! we played about 10 rounds and the kids never got tired of it. I only wish i would have introduced this game a bit sooner...we could have played a tournament every Sunday afternoon!

Sunday night was farewell party number two. This was a bit less exciting, and there was no disco, but it was good to gather one last time with the whole community of monks.

Here i am saying a few words of thanks for a good stay in Hanga. I will miss this place.

The guests of honor...

From left to right: Charlie, the Abbot of Mvimwa Abbey, me, and Br. Odo the Prior of Hanga Abbey.

Goodbye Hanga! Br. Kastor will travel with us tomorrow to Morogoro where we will stay for a short visit of two nights, then one night in Dar Es Salaam at the guest house there, and Friday Anne and I both have flights home. deep breath.

I might not post for another couple weeks, until I am back home in Winona. Once home, I will make at least a few good summary posts to show the various projects I have been involved in over the past 8 months as well as posting some video clips from my time here.

Thanks once again for reading :)