A Big Table in the Academy Big Room
Today marks the final day of the twelfth school year onboard the Africa Mercy!
If you ever get to a chance to visit the Academy BigRoom on the Africa Mercy, you will see a rather large odd plectrum-shaped wooden table. This table bears a long legacy that started onboard the Anastasis. It was originally built to fit a specific space in the Blue Room in the Academy on the Anastasis.
During the transition from the Anastasis to the Africa Mercy in 2007, we discovered that we needed more furniture than what we had. So this table was carefully cut in half and carried down the one gang way and up the other to its new home. It was beautifully rejoined and sanded for what the we thought it was a temporary solution. But even after 12 years we can't seem to part with this beauty! There is always space for one more, and if we had to add up the hours of staff meetings, devotions, student lessons and deep conversations that have take place around her, we would run out of fingers and toes!
At the end of the first school year, in June 2008 a tradition started that teachers who finished their service with us, would sign their name on the under-side of the BigRoom table. Inside every teacher is a little bit of a rule breaker. We spend our professional lives telling students to not write on tables, but we never said anything about under the table!
These teachers will remain for the next school year. We are still looking for a Social Studies teacher and also a French teacher.