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A lot of excitement on our last night there: happiness about all the new friends but also the weight of the pending departure and sadness about that. And some last bits of fun. Some of the kids with gifts we had given them. One of the kids, Shu Xia, very sad that we'd be leaving the next day.




You can't really tell from these photos but there was a lot going on around us while these pictures were being taken. A lot of running around and ungrouping and regrouping for different photos. It was getting late and the kids had to leave soon to get home before it got too dark. I think I was carrying around the pen that you see in my hand because I was still hustling to get those last minute pictures of my kids holding up the sheets of paper that they'd signed their names on. Also a lot of preliminary goodbyes and plans being made by the older boarding school kids to stop by early the next morning for a final goodbye before they started the long walk to their own school. And much of it being captured on camera by Wang Wei for the documentary as he hustled around trying to Capture the Moment. The funny thing is that now as I reconstruct the memory of this night and indeed of my entire time there, I'm hardly aware of any cameras being there. The kids we were teaching and the people we were with and the time and place overwhelmed everything else.