Goodbye Parties

Last Thursday, I invited myself to a 'good-bye'/'happy retirement' party. These parties are thrown by all the schools at the end of the year to formally send off transferring or retiring teachers. In reality, it is just one (of many) excuses to go out. Since I only show my face at each school once a week, I am sometimes forgotten. I guess being tall only makes a large impression on the eye, not the mind.

The fact that three teachers were leaving was overshadowed by a 6th grade teacher retiring. This guy is awesome. He's 60 and looks like he's in his late 40's. He enjoys body building, and talking about body building, while flexing his muscles for the lady teachers (especially the single ones). He thinks Home on the Range is the Great American Folk Song. He also told me that when he was younger, he would go on runs and children would run with him. I think someone's been watching a little too much Rocky.

To celebrate his retirement, we all jumped on a bus at 8 am and visited every school he ever taught at. A large banner was made, saying something like, 'Happy Retirement', so when we arrived at a school, everyone would jump out and take a group picture. We visited about 10 schools, with the best one being on Minna Island, which is about a 20 minute ferry ride. The island is small enough to walk around it leisurely in a couple of hours.The only sound to be heard on the island was the wind and birds. The retiring teacher said when he taught here 30 years ago, there were only 17 students. Now there are only 4. He also said that he had no electricity and water, that they used oil lamps and would collect rain. Hardcore.

Our last stop was a resort hotel in Onna. Biggest hotel I've ever stayed in. There were four guys, and we all had one room...and our own bed, with two showers. The day excursion including lunch, dinner, ferry ticket, karaoke, and hotel put me back only $50. I don't know where the rest of the money came from, but someone is being nice.