Surprises and Farewells

Yesterday evening Tim and I had the pleasure of being the guests of honor of the best surprise party ever! We were invited to For Children’s Sake, an NGO and youth club I worked with often during the last two years, to what we thought was a recording of an educational skit. We were instructed to bring our camera and asked to take pictures of the recording for their social next weekend. Silly me, I thought we were actually going to be working all evening and I was not looking forward to it, to be honest. However, I was SO thrilled and surprised to find what the youth and mentors at FCS had put together for us.

The club was decorated with streamers, fairy lights, handmade posters and decorations, and signs all over the walls with adjectives describing me and Tim (kind, caring, dedicated, inspirational, even sexy!). We were treated like royalty; given drinks, delicious food, cake, snacks and sweets, and honored and entertained by the talented members of the club. The program was thoughtful and rehearsed and it was obvious that the kids put a lot of time and effort into practicing their songs, poems, dances and skits that they performed for us. We loved the original work, along with favorites like a poem by Maya Angelou and Bill Withers’ Lean on Me, we were even treated to some traditional Guyanese folk songs. It was so much fun! I have never had anyone do anything like this for me before and I was so incredibly touched and honored.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude and love for my energetic young friends’. I kept bursting into tears all night. What a goober. Even now words cannot describe how touched I am. Tim said it best when he told the club that all the qualities they said they admire about us, are reflected right back in all of them. They are so talented and dedicated to volunteering as Peer Educators in the community. These youth have so much to offer the world and I have no doubt that they will continue to do amazing things for Linden, Guyana and themselves. I was so glad to have had the opportunity to get to know these amazing young people, work with them, play with them, laugh and cry with them. During my two years in Linden, These folks became my dearest friends and I will miss them so much, just as I know I will be missed by them. Their touching display of gratitude with the super-fun surprise party is something I will never forget. In fact, I know that I will look back on yesterday evening anytime I am feeling down to remember the boundless joy, diversity, talent, energy, potential and love that exists in Guyana, this beautiful country I call my home (for another 10 days that is)……

What a send off! THANK YOU members of For Children’s Sake! You seriously ROCK!

Here are some of my favorite pics from the evening:

Ahhh! So surprised!!!

Then we had a dance party! It was quite hilarious to watch the white gyal awkwardly try to "bruk it duhn"...

Fun was had by youth of all ages! What a blast!