Throughout the past nine months, ETA Riley Heist’s favorite part of her time in Indonesia has been her students. Every day when she walks into class, she is greeted by their sweet smiles and cheerful hellos as they tell her about their mornings.

On Wednesday, April 24th, Riley walked into XI MIPA 2 for the last time and was greeted with a surprise. On the board, a video was playing of her time in Indonesia. Next to the video, the students had filled the wall with love notes. The love notes said a variety of things but the sentences that meant the most to Riley were the ones saying that their views of America changed and that their views of themselves had changed. As sad as Riley is to go, she feels really lucky to have been able to spend this year getting to know her students, and she’s excited for them as they to go forth with life and make the changes to this world that she knows they are all capable of.

Riley Heist is currently teaching at SMAN 10 Samarinda, East Kalimantan