Another goodbye

Today was Hermans goodbye at work. He took the time and effort to write personal notes to all his direct colleagues and have the last ritual of coffee with cake with them. That's a very typical dutch thing on any momentous occassion. The one who's celebrating his birthday, departure, marriage, birth, drivers licence, or whatever, has to bring cake and then celebrate with the direct colleagues, preferably sitting in a circle. When at home, you do the same. The circle is a terrible thing. You get stuck next to people you neither know, or care to know, and then you have to spend the rest of the time making pleasant small talk with them! Many a birthday has been spent trying to get people out of the circle, but tradition must prevail at all costs...
But I digress... I was actually trying to tell about Hermans goodbye. He had a reception from his work (the same principle of the circle was repeated here, only the circle was big enough to contain about thirty people). I was invited too so I got to meet a lot of people from his work. Some of them for the first time. It doesn't sound very logical when I write it down. I mean why should I show up all of a sudden, when he's leaving? It's not like I was working there! I did enjoy it though. Lots of people showed up, he got a lot of gifts and people were very personal in wishing him the best. I enjoyed watching people enjoy him! He got a good sendoff and now has 5 weeks of vacation to look forward to. The weeks in Ethiopia will be peaceful (hopefully), the coming two weeks will be rushed. So glad he'll be home to bring some semblance of normality back to the house!