Day 53: Wednesday 9 December 2009 – Last Day of Teaching.

Due to tomorrow being “International Human Rights Day”, the Cambodian Government ruled that all schools and businesses close (except those tourist-revenue earners, of course).  At first this sounded absurd to me however given consideration, I suppose a day to mark Cambodian’s rights, considering all they had been through, wasn’t such a bad thing.  If they did in fact acknowledge the cause.

Anyway, tomorrow’s public holiday meant that today was my last day of teaching at New Hope.  Mentally, I was not prepared for this.  I really needed another day to psyche myself into the goodbyes.

The farewells were heart wrenching, beginning with a cluster of girls surrounding me after the end of their 3:00 PM class, and ended with a very public farewell for both Andrea and I (another volunteer, from the UK), by the entire school.  I was completely spoiled with cards, drawings, gifts, impromptu speeches and heartwarming hugs.  And to top it off, another farewell on Friday by Kemsour.

I continue to be flawed by the generosity of these people and their willingness to completely open up their hearts to complete strangers who filter in and out of their lives.

With all their kindness and tears, I easily forgot my own struggles of the past few months and found myself promising to return to New Hope and Siem Reap.   In my heart I know I can never turn my back on these children and their families.  I will be back one day soon.