Goodbye, Cadec.
And after my speech Luiz raised his hand to talk. He said he had something to say to. He asked me to come close and told me in my ear, I love you Tia Nicoli. Vivia cried, Stefani smiled big and gave me one last STRAWBERRY!(I taught her to say it in English a while back) Even bad boy Samuel asked me to come back. Luiz was a bad one too, but he made sure always to let me know I was his favorite teacher (course, Tia Nicoli is cool!)I felt bad I didn’t get him a picture of Maracana (the number one soccer stadium in all of Brazil), when I went. He was confused we were leaving-not outwardly displaying anger or sadness, but genuinely confused. It must have felt like everything was cut so short.
Anyway, we spent our last day in Cadec like we tend to spend on chill days, playing games and eating snacks and running around and making a mess. On these days I am like a child with responsibilities. They taught me a game I really liked, it was pick fruta-you have one person who’s it and they run around chasing everybody and you have to scream a fruit and bend down to not get tagged. But you cant say the same fruit twice and it has to be a fruit (of course I said tomato to mess with their heads, lol) It was also a great game cuz it reminded me of all the tropical fruits I came into contact with over there. Eliza, one of the morning kids, had a really hard time. After she ate the cake that Daniel and Geli bought for the class, it was very difficult for her to go home. She cried-the kind of tears that you see when you know a person is really trying to hold it back. I hate these tears. We let her stay a little longer just because, and then I had to say goodbye to my little woman. She’s always been my little trooper helping me out with everything. She got on her friends bike and road into the dirt street. In my heart I thought, I will never see her again.
The second shift was hard as well. I don’t know if I already told you, but I had taught 3 of my afternoon girls the hand game “Tweety Baby” and we play it almost every day now. I mean, even the boys got into it. It’s fun for them to guess what the words are, some of them have actually gotten pretty good. Stefani, Brunna, Vivia and I-we played the last day like we always do. But I wanted to teach a few others so I told Brunna to hold on a second. She got mad-she wanted me all to herself the last day. I understood that but, there were so many of them to say goodbye to. The other girls forgave me and said goodbye, but Brunna never did. Geli told me later that one of the little boys came up to her as we were leaving and said that every night he has a dream he is waking up and I am not there. In his dream he runs to his dad and asks “Where is Tia?’ This will always haunt me, more so because I don’t know who it was who had the dream.
As we were walking out, we turn to Cadec and all the staff and scream goodbye and we love you. All the kids wave at the gate. Brunna climbed to the top of the gate and screamed “E nunca volte!”(And never come back!) I smiled and said under my breath, I love you too, Brunna. Goodbye, Cadec.
And after my speech Luiz raised his hand to talk. He said he had something to say to. He asked me to come close and told me in my ear, I love you Tia Nicoli. Vivia cried, Stefani smiled big and gave me one last STRAWBERRY!(I taught her to say it in English a while back) Even bad boy Samuel asked me to come back. Luiz was a bad one too, but he made sure always to let me know I was his favorite teacher (course, Tia Nicoli is cool!)I felt bad I didn’t get him a picture of Maracana (the number one soccer stadium in all of Brazil), when I went. He was confused we were leaving-not outwardly displaying anger or sadness, but genuinely confused. It must have felt like everything was cut so short. 
Anyway, we spent our last day in Cadec like we tend to spend on chill days, playing games and eating snacks and running around and making a mess. On these days I am like a child with responsibilities. They taught me a game I really liked, it was pick fruta-you have one person who’s it and they run around chasing everybody and you have to scream a fruit and bend down to not get tagged. But you cant say the same fruit twice and it has to be a fruit (of course I said tomato to mess with their heads, lol) It was also a great game cuz it reminded me of all the tropical fruits I came into contact with over there. Eliza, one of the morning kids, had a really hard time. After she ate the cake that Daniel and Geli bought for the class, it was very difficult for her to go home. She cried-the kind of tears that you see when you know a person is really trying to hold it back. I hate these tears. We let her stay a little longer just because, and then I had to say goodbye to my little woman. She’s always been my little trooper helping me out with everything. She got on her friends bike and road into the dirt street. In my heart I thought, I will never see her again. 
The second shift was hard as well. I don’t know if I already told you, but I had taught 3 of my afternoon girls the hand game “Tweety Baby” and we play it almost every day now. I mean, even the boys got into it. It’s fun for them to guess what the words are, some of them have actually gotten pretty good. Stefani, Brunna, Vivia and I-we played the last day like we always do. But I wanted to teach a few others so I told Brunna to hold on a second. She got mad-she wanted me all to herself the last day. I understood that but, there were so many of them to say goodbye to. The other girls forgave me and said goodbye, but Brunna never did. Geli told me later that one of the little boys came up to her as we were leaving and said that every night he has a dream he is waking up and I am not there. In his dream he runs to his dad and asks “Where is Tia?’ This will always haunt me, more so because I don’t know who it was who had the dream.
As we were walking out, we turn to Cadec and all the staff and scream goodbye and we love you. All the kids wave at the gate. Brunna climbed to the top of the gate and screamed “E nunca volte!”(And never come back!) I smiled and said under my breath, I love you too, Brunna. Goodbye, Cadec.
No comments:
Post a Comment