Nicaragua: So long, farewell

"Profe, le deseo dos cosas: todo y nada.
Todo lo que le haga feliz

y nada que le haga sufrir."

Translation: Teacher, I wish two things for you: everything and nothing. Everything that makes you happy and nothing that makes you suffer. 

These were the parting words one of my students left me with this week. The time for saying "See you later" has come. "It's not that I don't like you all," I reassure my students. "It's not that I don't like Nicaragua. It's that I committed two years to being here, and now that time has ended. I'll be back someday to visit, si Dios quiere."

Each despedida, or going away occasion, has had a character of its own. The first one caught me by surprise; when I showed up to school at 7:30am, I walked into a classroom decorated with balloons and a banner that said, "Hasta pronto, Tracy." Instead of having class, we sat and listened to music while eating chicken nuggets, french fries, coleslaw, cake, and drinking Coca-Cola. 

At the next one, I showed up to class and started chatting with my counterpart teacher. He explained to me his class plan for the day, I approved it, and we waited for the students to show up. "How do you feel now that you have few days remaining in Nicaragua?" he asked me. "I'd rather not talk about it," I said with a knot in my stomach. The students showed up shortly thereafter, carrying a tub of sandwiches and juice. Not to my surprise, we had a going away party instead of following through with the class plan that was explained to me minutes prior.

"We know that this is the last day that Tracy is with us. We are sad, but she doesn't want to dwell on that, so we are just going to put on some music and dance," my counterpart teacher instructed the students. What ensued was an impromptu dance party complete with salsa and merengue lessons.

How many times do I have to do this, you wonder? At least once with each of the schools in which I work, which adds up to a minimum of six. My despedidas have been complete with sugar overloads, interesting gifts, dancing, students reciting poetry, students lining up to give me hugs, cheek kisses and well wishes, marriage proposals from brave boy students, and people saying, "don't leave us!" While dedicating time to say goodbye is a priority for most everyone here, it seems to me that no goodbye will ever be final. Everyone tends to say, "So, you'll come back next Wednesday?" or, "We'll still see each other this week, right?"

I have a few goodbyes left to say to friends in the community and to my host family. Besides cleaning my room and packing my stuff, the coming days will be spent hanging out at the farm with my host family and making the rounds to different goodbye gatherings. The fact that 27 months have come and gone is quite surreal, and my emotions cannot decide if they are sad to be leaving, happy for the relationships I have formed here, excited to be going back to Minnesota...you get the idea. I suppose it is all just a part of the journey.