Farewell to Indonesia

 My students threw a surprise farewell party for me last night!!! It was just so so sweet of them.  They really kept themselves quiet about it.....a little hard to imagine. All year long we have talked about movies, and last week they were pressing me for favorite movies.  I told them a few and they ended up choosing "Princess Bride",  which was such fun to watch at the party.  They had brought in plenty of food and drinks.  We sat around in the multipurpose room for over 3 hours and talked and watched the movie. The 9th graders had to leave after an hour or so because it was their grade level party at their sponsors' house.  They told stories about interactions with me and wrote such nice notes. There were about 30 of them.  I cannot express how touched I was. 

Tonight is the end of year staff appreciation dinner.  That will be nice too. It is, as usual, at a restaurant about an hour away which is owned by the parents of some of our students.  It is always a good time. The director warned me that we would need to say something when they recognize our leaving.  I really don't like those kinds of things.  Oh well.  

So we have one week of school left which is mostly involving finals and grading.  We are in good shape in our packing.  We can make it out of here with just our 4 suitcases that we are allowed on the plane.  I am rather proud of that.....not everyone might be proud of that fact, but it makes me feel so very free. 

P.S. 

We are back to waiting for money out of China.  About 8 months ago we finally got the 2 year backlog of money which the school had deposited into a Chinese bank, thanks to the work of friends.  So PKU finally is ready to deposit our salary once a semester into our US bank.  However, lockdown due to covid means that the adminstrator responsible for this cannot leave her apartment and get to the bank on campus to facilitate the transfer.  We really kind of need this money for the summer and the move to Rwanda???  Prays for farewells and our salary appreciated.