The closing ceremony, a ceremony that I was looking forward to and dreading all at the same time, purely because I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.

For two days I have been planning the speech to close the ceremony, containing not only our farewells but what we will take from the project back to the UK as a team, I have always enjoyed writing speeches but when so much is riding on one it increases the stress levels a little, still I gave it my best shot despite the nerves.
We got on the bus in our normal day clothes not wanting to muddy our best ware after the rains which have been hitting the south of the country hard for nearly a week. The bus was it’s usual over crowded nature, often I listen to music but not this time, I was enveloped in my thoughts of what this, sure to be an emotional, day would bring.

When we arrived we were greeted by the teacher and the children, who presented us with flower chains and their usual warm welcome we have come to expect from this amazing community. The school slowly started to fill up, firstly with Sarvodia officers, friends and then the community started to pour in, we ran out of chairs but it didn’t deter them as they began to sit on the floor and fill every space the small school had to offer.
The ceremony was not just a celebration of the building but a celebration of cultures; the school children performed three dances dressing in marvellous costumes from Arabian pirates to beautiful saris. The children had put a great deal of time energy and effort into their performances and it was a pleasure to see. It wouldn’t be a cultural show without a team performance. We have practiced hard working on two dances and a song without fail at around five in the afternoon, for as long as it took to get the dances right. I am awful at dancing but even I gave it a go and despite being the least physically rhythmic person I had so much fun working on our performances with the rest of the team, who cut me a little slack and were very understanding.
One of the dances was a Indian dance, with a few western tweaks, as myself and Omari performed the Robot dance at the end, a terrifying display with a classic Usain Bolt pose at the end, golden!
Then it was the turn of the speech I had prepared, having a translator is an odd experience you have to pause constantly and at many moments I certainly ran away with my translator who was very patient with me as I had to repeat the odd piece of the speech.

Finally our teacher made a speech and we were presented with so many gifts, it was one of the most moving experiences of my life and one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.