St. Andrews

the parish at st. andrews put together a big formal dinner for our final night. right in the back of the church in a square patch of grass where the chickens ran around all day. they set up a circle of chairs. the event was designed to be a thank-you/goodbye to kendra and her parents as well as a presentation of gifts. we sat down and one by one the staff stood to introduce themselves and formally thank kendra and her parents, as well as diana, james and me. this was a long involved process and the food was in the center of the circle smelling very amazing which was distracting. but it was still a big honor to hear their introductions and gratitudes... it's just that my focus was on that food...

the formality of things shows great respect and forethought and the priests were in great humor (which may have been assisted by the constant passing around of MORE beer). one of the teachers kept calling me "stephan". he loved music and requested i sing about 9 different times throughout the meal. which i was more than happy to do. it was fun for me and a big novelty for them but it was hilarious hearing "steff hahn! may i request you sing another song for us?" my new nickname became steff hahn within the team. we presented gifts, then i sang, people got their food, i provided music for this as well, and sang another song, someone gave another speech, steff hahn would be requested to sing again and the evening went on just like this... the teacher making the request was a great guy. so fun to talk with. it's sad to leave since i made some many great connections with a bunch of the students... fred, josephine, ivan, alysias, victor, john and esther... they're all such amazing people. i hope i get to see them again in the future.