The last day of Camp Challenge was a bittersweet event. Our students have been dreading this day for almost three weeks now. On Thursday many of them already started crying thinking about Friday and saying goodbye. It was difficult to see, and I had the avoid many of them to save myself from tearing up.

We started off by serving the students a breakfast consisting of delectable fat cakes that were introduced to us by one of our students. They then presented their final camp projects in which they showed the six steps of the model applied to a social issue they each picked. All of them were very well thought out and detailed in description. I was proud of their accomplishment, and I hope that this project helped them to see that they can make individual efforts to bring about positive change.

Then Beverly and I gave a farewell speech in which we thanked them for all their hard work and perseverance. We shared with them the reason why we came to Thaba Bosiu to teach and encouraged them to impact the lives of others the way we impacted them. At this time, every single student with a solemn face started crying, some covered their entire face with tears and others bowed their head to hide their sadness. I, myself, could not hold my tears back any longer and expressed my sincere sorrow to leave them. But I remained hopeful for all of them and urged them to use the lessons they learned from Camp Challenge to further their life and pursue their dreams. Afterwards two of our students presented farewell speeches on behalf of their classmates. Both were touching and expressed their gratitude for the teaching we provided them. Many of the students individually after that came to give us thank you notes they wrote for Beverly and me. We then gave them each a small gift as token of our appreciation along with a personalized note. All of them took time to quietly reflect on the memories they had in our camp.

After lunch, we had a small party for all the students and provided dessert and snacks for them. We exchanged contact information and promised each other to keep in touch in the future. The hardest part came next: saying goodbye. As we were making final arrangements in the staff room, groups of students came in as they were heading home to say one last final goodbye to each of us. Some had faint smiles, and others could not even utter a single word. It was possibly the hardest goodbye I have ever had to say. I gave advice to each student to work hard, never give up, and always believe in themselves as I embraced them and bid them farewell. Something that Basothos say as a farewell is “Go in peace.” Even though saying goodbye was hard for every student, I hope that they do not mourn over this event, but see it as a joyful beginning in which they will go in peace towards their future, having faith that they will be blessed at the end.