"May Blessings Go With You"

"May blessings go with you." That's what one of my students said as he walked out the door with a smile and a Kentucky quarter in his hand.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've said farewell to a handful - okay, a few handfuls - of African refugees who have staked a claim to a huge portion of my heart. People who found their way from faraway cities and villages to Cape Town. Though our backgrounds and situations and stories may be wildly different, their journeying paths crossed mine in a mecca of sorts: Scalabrini Refugee Centre.

When it comes to adventure, I daydream several steps ahead. As I prepared for - and even as I landed for - my time in South Africa, I already had my eye on the day I'd leave. I suppose my way of living in the moment and soaking it all in is to imagine how hard it will be to see all of these things in the rearview mirror.

I must admit, though, that I never saw this coming. I didn't even have a solid plan to teach while I was here. And I certainly never really thought about how much I'd value my students and their life experiences at the end of it all. I never considered the concern I would have for people I will probably not see again.

Pre-Intermediate II

As interested in their lives as I have been, they have probably been more interested in me. They love to ask questions about my family, my friends, my culture, and my home. I've proudly told them all sorts of tidbits, some more personal than others. While gearing up to say goodbye to them, I came up with a way to encompass it all, and to leave them with a small token of our time together.

We'd been studying first conditional phrases in my Pre-Intermediate II class. If you haven't studied up on English grammar in a while, here's a reminder. You combine (if + subject + present simple verb) and (subject + will/won't + infinitive verb) to talk or write about situations that are possible or likely to happen. So, after placing a small surprise at each of their seats, I wrote this message on the board: In my culture, if you find a 'heads up' on the ground, it will bring you good luck.

Folker, his Kentucky quarter, and Mputu

Their small surprise was, of course, a Kentucky quarter. We discussed the head on the front, the image on the back, and the value of the coin ($0.25 = R2.50). I told them to keep their coins for good luck that will follow them on their journeys ahead, and then I got a bit teary-eyed. Not for long, though, because I had Oreos (my favorite American treat) to share. None of them had eaten an Oreo before, either, and I wouldn't be surprised if they told you they liked the cookie better than the coin!

Leaving Scalabrini is definitely one of the hardest things about wrapping up my time in Cape Town, but it is the perfect manifestation of the Winnie the Pooh quote that's tossed around the Internet...