Circle Of Life

It's the Circle of Life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle

The Circle of Life

Not going to lie… I am quite tired so this one is going to be short. But it has been well over my week goal so I am gong to squeak one in.

Last Thursday I arrived at school like any other normal day. Apart from the guys selling encyclopedias to the excited student crowd I didn’t see anything strange as I entered the school. But slowly as I walked to my classroom I noticed groups of the older students huddled together talking in low, quite, almost sad tones. I didn’t think much of it; often this just meant they had a test they had forgotten about or something of that sort. But when I entered my normally crazy, loud, and loca classroom full of girls they were all huddled I groups crying and hugging each other I knew something was wrong. I walked up to one of my better friends in the class and trying to sound sad (even though I had no idea what was going on) asked what had happened. Turned out that one of the English teachers had died the night before in a mix up with here pregnancy at age 54. I gave all my friends huge hugs and tried to help where I could.

We then just sat in our room like it was a normal day; nobody came or left, except for the inspector to have the usual yell at us for our skirts being above the knee. Then somebody came in and told us all to go home and change into our nicer uniforms. I didn’t understand why (nor did I have the nicer uniform tailored yet), but it didn’t seem to be a big deal because nobody moved. But half an hour later a woman came in and told us all to take our stuff and leave, she then proceeded to lock the classroom behind us. At this point all the class presidents (and when I say class I mean from each class room, not the whole grade) left to get flowers and one by one everybody else left to change their uniforms. Eventually I left with my host sister and went home where she changed into her nicer uniform and I changed out of my gym uniform into my skirt and sweater. When then headed back to the school where the whole school had lined the main street of Guraranda for the funeral procession to come threw. The family and car with the casket walked down the street and into an area with a stage behind the school that I didn’t know existed. Slowly the whole school filed in after the family and faced a stage with over 60, what I would call, arranged flower centerpieces and the casket on it.

The priest entered and proceeded to get dressed on stage in front of the whole school and then gave about an hour and a half sermon. The service was ended by handshakes then everybody sat back down and friends and family went up and gave speeches about her and her life. This was all concluded at about 11 when everybody left to go home for the day, because clearly no more schoolwork was going to get done.

Later that afternoon there was a church service at the local church for her as well, much of the school attended this service, but I opted to hang out with some other AFS friends, I had had quite enough Spanish speeches and crying for one day. But it was an experience that is for sure.

Livin’ life on the loose.