Sidebar #88 - Saying Goodbye

In June, my cohort had our “Close of Service” conference. One of the workshops/lectures we had was on the importance of saying goodbye. To be honest, this hadn’t been an area I’d thought too much about prior as it related to my service, but in the cultural context of Costa Rica, it’s extremely important. Whereas in the US, sometimes it is common to “Irish Exit” a position or an event rather than draw attention to oneself, it would be seen as much more offensive in Costa Rica to leave without the proper send-off. Because of that, I’ve tried to be really intentional during my last few weeks of service to carve out time to thank people who had an impact on my service and to say goodbye. Equally, people in my community have been incredibly gracious in sending me off. Both my host family and high school organized goodbye lunches for me, my elementary school gifted me a plaque, and I had the chance to run one last time with a couple of my running groups.

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