It’s Thursday and the girls have left. Jim took ’em. Jim was one of our volunteer teachers and he, like us, fell in love with the school, the teachers and the kids when he was there. And it stuck. He was keen to take over from us and take them home to Victoria where he and his wife will continue the ‘experience’ of BC. It is a good thing.

It is also a bit of a ‘moving’ thing. Lots of tears from the girls and, I admit, a bit of a misty eye from me, too. The teacher was a sobbing mess!

It is not as if I am prone to teary sentimentality when saying goodbye, being the macho, crusty type that I am. I am disinclined to sad, prolonged, gooey goodbyes as a rule. I am a romantic, to be sure, but basically a realist. People come and people go. It is the way of things.

Once, I even cracked a joke with a friend who was in the process of dying.

It is not that I am callous, it is just that goodbyes don’t mean that much to me. I always intend to see the person again – in my friend’s case, in the ‘next life’, I suppose – but, for most goodbyes, what I really mean is: ‘I’ll see you again soon’.

But this time was different. These are little girls at a crucial point in their lives – they are ‘stepping out’ for the first time. And neither I nor anyone else will see them as children ever again. These kids are on the brink of adulthood and they have entrusted some of that ‘initiation’ process to us. In that sense, we are one of the last stations on their route to growing up.

Does anyone really know how that is done?

We, of course, gave them a gift-to-mark-their-visit. They, of course, gave us one. Each gift is cherished by the recipient not because of the actual item given but rather because of the sentiment expressed in the giving and receiving. In the beginning it is ‘respect’. If you are lucky, it moves beyond that.

They gave us a typical ‘guest-who-does-not-yet-know-the-host’ gift of something Chinese but then, later (when they knew us), a gift of their own personal thoughts in a journal-diary-like summary of their time here. It was funny. It was touching. It was great!

We gave them something from the area – local Native-carved silver pendants – but I added a personal story (after I knew them). And that – the story – was what meant the most to them.

I told them the myth of Raven releasing the humans from the clamshell into the world but drew a parallel with their own release from childhood into adulthood. It was personal. They got it.

The pendants are now more than just a souvenir.

And now we are more than just ‘guest teachers and students’. Now we are real friends.

And that, dear readers, is why we do this.