My Last Week at Ranui

There is no way I can possibly explain to you how amazing this last week has been. I have never felt so much love and appreciation in my life. These kids are just beyond adorable.

Kahu and Me. I love this kid.

Kahu, Cyprus, Kaipara, and Tuafono after lunchtime swimming

Can you tell how high-quality our "pool" is?

Aren't they just so cute?

Most of the class chillin in the pool!

Our Hero Quilt. Some of the heroes featured include: Sir
Edmund Hillary, Whaea Del, kids' family members, and God

All week, I had kids coming up to me (both from my class and from other classes/grades at Ranui) asking me if I really had to leave at the end of the week. It was really sweet. But on Thursday, I was just overwhelmed with the amount of love these kids showed for me.
Thursday morning when I walked into the school, I was immediately attacked by multiple kids asking me if today was really my last day. I had to fight them off just so I could get some things ready for my last few lessons. Blessing came up to me and gave me a flax bracelet and 2 flower leis that he had bought with his own money. It was so cute! Then he gave me one of his rubber bracelets (these are the HUGE fad here. It's out of control) that said "love" on it and gave me the biggest hug ever. He was not named Blessing by accident. I love that kid.
Once I got to class and the bell had rung, I took the roll and then we did circle time. The kids wanted to do high point low point and literally every one of them said that their low point was that it was my last day. It was really cute.
At lunch, we had a shared kai and so many of the kids had brought a bunch of food to share with everyone and we all ate together in the classroom. It was a lot of fun, and there was a lot of food. I brought some chocolate chip cookies and the kids were all obsessed with them. Blessing came up to me and said "Whaea Emily, those cookies are lovely, just like you." I swear, if I could adopt that child, I would in a heartbeat. Kaya bought me an iceblock from the iceblock sales at the beginning of lunch. (I'm not a huge fan of iceblocks, but it was so cute of her, I had to eat it). We had a lot of fun eating together and then we went outside to play for a bit. The kids would not leave my side. It was seriously so cute. They were just holding on to me and holding my hands. Even kids from other classes kept coming up and hugging me and saying they were going to miss me. One girl from another class even brought me a gift! I seriously love those kids.

Tutu and Stephen on Peer Mediator duty

After lunch though, was just amazing. I took the roll and then read them a book called "How to Live Forever" about how living forever is really not living at all and sometimes we have to just grow up and move on. It was the perfect book to read today. After we read, we all got in a circle, and Whaea Del had them go around and say one thing they've loved about the time I've spent here. At that point, I couldn't hold it in anymore and I started crying like a baby. Pretty soon, about half the class was crying. They presented me with a book that they made for me that had cards from all the kids in it. It was seriously the cutest thing ever.

Then they gave me a bar of kiwifruit chocolate (which I'm bringing home to share because it's so yum). Kenny raised his hand because he had something else to give me too, but by then he was crying so hard he couldn't even talk or give it to me so Lazarus brought it up to me. It was this cheapy little ring with fake diamonds and it was so cute. It hardly fit on my little finger, but I was so touched. You could tell he thought it was really valuable.

Isn't it beautiful? Haha

After that, I gave them all the cards that I had made for each of them. Then we went outside for a game with the parachute. It was so much fun playing with the parachute. We played "Shark Attack"--where 3 kids go under the parachute and 3 kids are lifeguards and the "sharks" try to pull people under the parachute while the "lifeguards" try to save them. They kids LOVED it. It was really cute.

Whaea Del and some of the kids

Eliezer getting pulled under the parachute by a shark!

Malachi practicing his lifesaving skills

Being a lifeguard is tough when you're tiny

Then we went back in the class and took some pictures. By this time, so many of the kids had been giving me their bracelets that I ended up with 17 of them on my wrist. It looked pretty legit, not gonna lie.

My WONDERFUL class!

My 17 bracelets (notice that most of them say
"Bob Marley" haha)

After the bell rang, the kids all started crying again and running towards me. It was a very emotional day, and I'm really going to miss those kids. It was such an incredible experience that I will remember forever.

Neeley, Nicole, Me, and Whitney in front of the school