Closing Ceremony and Staff Appreciation

Phew... that was a long day! The last day of school, my longest day at work yet. I arrived at school around 7:45AM, because I told my teachers to be there at 8:00AM to set up for the closing ceremony, sort of like the closing assembaly at the end of the term. we were schedualed to start at 10AM, at 10:25 most of the teen class had yet to grace us with their presence, but I figured, hey they are at the end of the program, that gives them a couple more hours, we'll go ahead and start... and everything ran surprisingly smooth. Life has been bisy the past couple of weeks, I feel like everyday I come home and say something life, man I was so busy at work today. The end of the term, teachers meetings, projects, discipline problems and general everyday mayhem makes for an interesting work day.
Thursday was the most crazy, however, because we had not only the closing ceremony for the children's program, but also the staff appreciation that night which Annie and I have been planning for the past coupel weeks, trying to figure out gifts, decorations, how much food entertainment, how to fit everyone into the small guild hall, how to move all the chairs out of classes into teh guild hall for the CEP closing ceremony, and then back again for the adult classes in the afternoon, and then back to the guild hall for our 30 minute set-up time until peopel started arriving...man, it was a busy day. But all went well! shockingly well, it all came together in teh end, everyone loved the entertainment, we had a drama performed and written by a drama group form the refugee community, then dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken and PIzza Hut (which they loved, and always love because it is a big expensive treat in Egypt, I could never afford to eat there everyday even if I wanted to). After dinner we awarded all the certificates with flare and gave out gifts (the gifts we really struggled with finding something that woudl be useful yet a special treat, finally Dan, one of the teachers, suggested.. socks, brilliant! so it was fantastic, and everyone needs three or four new nice pairs of dress socks!) One of the best highlights of teh night was the dancing, we hired a dance group that was just amazing, they do dances of all the different sudanese tribes, so it is very inclusive and everyone enjoys it.
After all was said and done, I was dead tired, so I went out of St. Andrews finally at about 10:30pm and joined my friends to celebrate my friend Robin's birthday until 2AM! phew, but now we are ready to go on our break and off to Israel Tuesday night, should be amazing, pray for safety. we are going to be in Bethlehem for Christmas Eve, already have our tickets reserved for the service and everything.... hooray! Merry Christmas everybody!