Expats come and go

Being an expat means that the people around you move frequently. Most expats are on a contract to work in a foreign country for 2-3 years. When we moved to Belgium we really thought we would only be there for 2 years. Of course we are now heading into our 4th, but lots of our friends have moved on. For example, during the first year of our expat adventure, I made friends with 3 wonderful people. By the end of the school year all of them were selling off their European electric appliances and planning for moves to other countries. It was sad but it reminded us that we are now able to expand our friendship base to wonderful people living all over the world.
Leah and Jenn are very lucky middle schoolers. Almost all their good friends are returning this fall for 8th grade. But sadly, their friend Rachel moved this summer back to her native country of Korea. Before the end of the school year, she made all of her friends an oragami crane with a goodbye message written inside. Jenn's was green and Leah's was blue. In the picture at the top you can see she even wrote each girl's name on the wing of the crane.

Jenn made the larger crane out of their shared orchestra music and Leah took the pictures.