Saying Goodbye

As the school packs up and gets ready to leave and move to our new campus, we needed to somehow say goodbye to the community. The school I work at has existed in the same place for the past 50 years. We've employed local Sundanese Indonesians from the community here for just about as long. We have helpers who clean the classrooms, work in the kitchen cooking lunches, and greet people as they come on campus as our security guards. Along with that all of our staff (and almost all of our school families) have employed people from the local community to work for us as house helpers, night watchmen, and drivers. The school moving an hour away is going to have a HUGE impact on the local community we live in here.

One part of the Indonesian culture is to have a perpisahan, or goodbye party, when someone leaves. So in an effort to part well and leave a positive impact, the school hosted a perpisahan a couple of weeks ago. Many of our school helpers as well as personal house helpers showed up. As is tradition we also invited the local leadership and officials for this community. We all dressed up in dressy Indonesian clothing and ate a yummy Indonesian lunch. We heard from some representatives from the school and the community. Our director Joey gave a speech and we heard from someone in the community who remembers when the school was built. In fact I think he even mentioned that he helped build it. Also, some of the ladies who work in the kitchen sang a special song that they wrote. It was a really special event. Even though I haven't been here long, it gave me a greater appreciation for the legacy our school will be leaving here in this community. We will be sad to leave, and they will be sad to see us go.

Greeting our guest as they come in with the traditional Indonesian greeting.

My roommate Emma with some of the women who help at our school and we see everyday.

Some of the women with our director Joey's son. They love babies!

Joey speaking to the group who came. He said words of thanks as well as asked for forgiveness if we as a school have done anything to offend anyone in our history in that place. Krissy one of the mom's at our school translates for him.

The old man who remembers when there was nothing around here and the school was first built. One of our dad's from the school translates for us from the local Sundanese language into English.

Some of our helpers sing a special goodbye song that they wrote.

And the fun begins when some of our helpers and others from the community begin dancing spontaneously.

Now they've got a whole group up on stage singing and dancing.

Joey ceremonially dishes the first and best food for the leadership in the community.

Lots of people in line to get food for lunch. It was delicious.