Glorious Sabbath

"The increate perpetual thirst, that draws
Toward the realm of God's own form, bore us
Swift almost as the Heaven ye behold." -Dante

What a pleasure to take a break from work and enjoy the weekend. "The Sabbath was made for man," after all. A blessing, for sure. I used Dante's quote on entering Heaven for hyperbole.

• Friday night we spent helping out the youth group, which was pleasant. I even found some kids who had appreciation for the old Nintendo 64 version of Mario Kart, and we discoursed quite awhile. Amy was highlighted in a trivia game for having visited 24 different countries (not including stops at airports), which the students found most impressive.
• Saturday afternoon, we enjoyed the birthday party of one of Amy's students, Aditi. A large, bouncy slip and slide was set up, and they had a big machine that showered suds on us that we could slip (and slide) that much better. We were the only adults joining in the fun.
• Saturday night, we attended the "Surifair 2009" at the Torarica Hotel. The Surifair was a big bazaar filled with booths from different tourism companies, and we got to see some native musicians and dancers as well. The Torarica is the ultimate in posh resorts for Suriname, so we enjoyed our time there.
• Sunday morning, I was playing acoustic guitar in church, and all the power went out, leaving the drummer and me as the only instrumentalists that could be heard. This would have been fine, except that we hadn't had a chance to practice the song beforehand, and it was hard for me to follow anyway, since the words were all in Dutch. Nonetheless, I performed a nice little solo.
• Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, at the PTA luncheon, where we enjoyed the food from some PTA members, the company, mostly, of other teachers, and the odd, vague question (i.e. "So, school is good?" or "So, how do you find Suriname?) from parents. I've still not gotten up the nerve to tell the parents that I find Suriname by looking at map of South America and saying "Aha!"

Believe it or not, the weekend was a refreshing respite. But don't worry, for as I told the many parents, "School is good."