Last Days in Botswana

7/13/09 I was really hoping to go to Victoria Falls while in Kasane but the plans and cost just didn't seem to work out right. It seems like the people who did go had a really great time so that's awesome! The other memebers of the group went around Kasane and to the markets and came back with lots of great souveniers. I didn't go because I was trying to avoid spending any more money and I refuse to withdrawal any more pula from the ATM. Instead me and Meg stayed at the hotel and relaxed in the sun. We also got massages which were very cheap (abt 27 USD). I needed it after being crammed on that bus and sleeping awkwardly. Tonight we had a bonfire for everyone. We al went around and shared our favorite memories which was a lot of fun. I thought it was a great way to end our experience in Kasane.

7/14/09 Longest bus ride ever!! My butt is numb. My neck hurts. And I am exhausted! Good Night!!

7/15/09 Last night in Botswana.

Talk about bittersweet. That seems to be the phrase for many things lately. It's hard to believe that our time here is already over but I am really excited to explore Cape Town and then head home. Dr. Lucky (in the picture with me to the right) had a dinner for us. Clare invited Esale, our roomate to come along so she drove us (SCORE!) when we arrived, I was stunned at how beautifully decorated it was. I didn't expect her to go all out for us but it was very nice of her. The food was wonderful and it seemed like everyone had a really great time. A lot of other people were there that had been with us throughout our trip. It was great to reunite with everyone one last time before we headed home to finish some last minute packing. I have to say that I learned so much on this trip and was truly touched by each and every individual I met here. I had a wonderful experience at Baylor and really enjoyed the people that I worked with both because they were very professional and had much knowledge to share with me and because they were incredibly compassionate and caring people who truly believe in the work they are doing. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to travel to place that I honestly would have never thought I'd travel to. I have learned so much not just about Botswana culture but about myself and I cannot wait to share what I have learned with the people closest to me.

Pictures: Me & Zach (roomies) on our last night. Mandy, Titus, Me & Chris by the fire.

Kasane Game Drives at Chobe National Park

7/11/09 After the long torturous 12 hour drive to Kasane in Northern Botswana, we arrived in the beautiful (and WARM) Mowana Safari Lodge. To the left is the Mowana tree the lodge is named after. This particular one is over 800 years old and they are known for how thick their trunks are and that they live for a very long time. Apparently when the lodge was being built it caught on fire during an electrical storm and the original Mowana tree that was 1500 years old was destroyed. We started our drive at 4am and it was freezing cold! I was bundled up in my blankets, cacoon style and thought my ankles/feet were going to go numb. Thanksfully it warmed up about 2 hours into the trip. We stop several times for breakfast, lunch and to use the bathroom. The only thing that could have made a drive like that better was a little Shayne Ward so we could put on a kareoke performance. Our lodge was absolutely gorgeous! We were told we would be staying at the Chobe Marina Lodge but had our hotel changed last minute. After having seen Chobe's pictures I was sure there was no way it could be topped but I was quite mistaken. Mowana is a 5 star lodge that even Bill Clinton, Oprah and other Botswana governmental officials have stayed in so I mean I guess it was good enough for me! ;) Mandy and I decided to room together and we took full advantage of the anemities provided! We lounged around in our robes and watched animal planet to prepare us for the wildlife we would see the next day.

7/12/09 Another early morning, but well worth it. We woke up at around 5:30 to get ready for the open air Jeep game drive through Chobe National Park. There were 3 Jeeps that took our group around and we saw giraffes, buffalo, baboons, impala, antelope, hippos, bald eagles and lions! I was most excited for the lions because I am a Leo! We heard them roar which was pretty awesome also. I wish my pictures had come out better but I know that other people got better ones so I'm not as worried about it. They stopped the jeeps along the Chobe River in an open area. Across the river was Namibia. They provided us with coffee and tea which I think we all really love how tea time is incorporated into everything we do here! As we were roaming the land one of the lions began to roar and they called us tocome closer to the Jeeps...just in case they ventured closer to where we were. Here are some pictures from the game drive:

The breakfast buffet at Mowana is heavenly. They make us omelettes with whatever we want in them! I'm seriously hardly ever hungry for lunch which is probably good since we have to get lunch/dinner on our own. Mandy and I were so lazy, we just kind of lounged around until it was time for the boat tour on the Chobe River. It was low 80s so I opted for a tank top (yesss) and enjoyed the nice breeze as I rode top deck. We saw elephants, hippos, crocodiles, water buffalo, bald eagles and the SUN! lol I don't think anyone realizes how much I have missed being warm. I didn't really expect it to be as cold as it has been but it is winter, I suppose. I think I enjoyed the water tour the most because of the how close we were to the elephants. They were playing in the water with one another and it was the cutest thing! They kept dunking each other and going under and then popping back out. Apparently hippos sleep on land during the day as a way to warm up when the water is very cold. What a life: basking in the sun all day! One hippo got up and was walking away from us...he was pretty much waddling and wagging his nub of a tail. Probably the funniest thing we did was creep our boat up on a crocodile who was hanging out close to shore and then he freaked out and snapped before heading back into the water. A couple of people got really great videos, I wish I had one also! Here are some pictures from the boat tour:

Bye Bye Baylor

7/9/09 Today was the multicultural counseling conference at UB. I bought the shirt I have on in the picture at a store here and had specifically set it aside for the conference however, I didn't try it on because it looked like it should fit. When I started change, I realized I couldn't get it over my head! Now I have a fairly small head and the fact that it wouldn't fit through their really concerns me but we took out some of the stitching and i was able to shimmy it down. What an ordeal though! Our presentation was at 3:15 but of course they found a way to incorporate tea time in so we didn't really start until 3:30ish. Dr. Pillay set up the presentation by filling in the listeners on what our program is about, the preparation, and history of it and then posed several questions to us about our experience on this trip so far. It was a bit difficult answering the question about our initial impressions honestly without sounding ignorant or closeminded but I think we were able to articulate our perceptions and how they may have been misled. I will honetly admit, I know so little about this country and Africa in general before coming here so this has been such an eye opening experience. I think too, it will open the eyes of other people around me who may have false perceptions of what African countries are like as they can see through my pictures and my words that they maybe its not so different from home. If there's one thing I've learned on this trip it's that people are people everywhere you go. Kindness translates across all cultures...thankfully. Of course there will be differences, and there ARE difference but I think I've been truly amazed by the similarities. Tonight we went out to dinner to Primi, an amazing Italian restaurant at Riverwalk. Mandy and I split the primo pasta (fettuccine in a light cream sauce with mushrooms and ham aka delicious in a bowl) and some wine. It was probably the second best meal I’ve had on the trip (behind the Grand Palm buffet!) The picture above is Mandy, Me & Meg at dinner. We had such a fabulous night! Afterward we went to a local dive bar that Dr. Pillay and Dr. Bates often go to. It was nice to go somewhere a little smaller and more laid back.

7/10/09 Today is my last day at Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence. Is was somewhat disheartening to hear people at breakfast saying “thank God its my last day working” as if it was the worst thing they have ever had to do. I understand that some people didn’t get placed where they wanted and that others who did may not have been able to do all the things they had hoped but I certainly thought everyone would make the most of it, but unfortunately it seems like a few people did not. I could be disappointed that I wasn’t able to actually work with clients and let that ruin my experience, but I see the importance of the work we were able to do and I feel grateful for the knowledge I gained throughout my entire time at Baylor. I guess I’m just a firm believer that life is what YOU make of it. I’m not trying to minimize the influence of other people choices on our lives or even the things that occur that our beyond our control, but we always have a choice on how we decide to view all of those things. Sometimes I think the easiest route is to focus on the negative but I think its ultimately less fulfilling. I have chosen to reframe my time at my placement in order to ensure that I have had a memorable and rewarding experience.

At Baylor, we had our final play group which was fun as usual. I’m really going to miss those sweet little smiling faces! Clare had told me how at SOS the kids always call her teacher (pronounced tee-cha) which I thought was really cute and today one of the little boys kept calling me it. His voice was so cute and he was practically chasing me around the table trying to hand me various things he would find on the ground. Kate and I had a farewell lunch with some of the other visiting scholars at the hotel restaurant in Main Mall. Kate splurged and got their buffet which looked amazing but I was trying to save some money. I only have a couple hundred pula left and I’m trying really hard not to withdraw anymore until we get to Cape Town because their currency is obviously different. After lunch we had a quick meeting with Dr. Ryan about our assignments and to discuss how our experience was at Baylor. He thanked us for our hard work and even offered to write us letters of recommendation in the future if we wanted. I will probably be taking him up on that offer very soon.

We leave for Kasane at 4:30 am tomorrow morning!! We’re all excited but not so much for the bus ride. I can’t imagine being trapped on a charter bus for 12 or so hours. I thought it was bad when we road the one from Athens to Pittsburgh when our flight to Cancun was moved from Columbus to there and that was only a third of the time. They changed our hotel from the Chobe Marina Lodge to the Mowana Safari Lodge. I can’t tell based of their websites which one is better though we’ve been told that the Mowana is the more expensive choice so we’ll see! I’m really excited for the safaris.. I hope that we see elephants, rhinos, giraffes, hippos, cheetahs, lions, all the big animals!!! I’m a little bit nervous for the boat tour just because of my motion sickness..the last time I was on a small boat was in Cancun going out to Isle Murjeres and I was soo sea sick. Andrew had to hold me the entire way there and back because I was so miserable. This time I came prepared with some Dramamine so hopefully it does the trick! We’re not really sure if we’ll be able to go to Victoria Falls on Tuesday because of the transportation issues and cost.

I decided to pack not only for Kasane but the rest of my stuff so that I won’t have to do it when we get back. I just know that I’m going to want to relax and catch up on my blog so it made more sense to me. Plus, I needed to see if it was possible for me to fit all my pottery in my carry on bag and it is! It’s quite heavy so I’m going to see if I can buy a small bag with wheels on Wednesday when we get back but if not, I’ll just have to suck it up. I also highlighted my hair because my awful roots were about to drive me crazy. I was a little nervous to use hair dye from another country but I took a chance and it turned out really well. We talked about staying up all night until the bus left but everyone decided they wanted to sleep some. For whatever reason though I was not tired at all until around 2am so I was up in my room packing and cleaning up and talking to Andrew until about 3 in the morning. I guess I will be sleeping on the bus in about 2 hours!

Week 4, already?!

7/5/09 I was so tired when I woke up today. I don't know what my problem was but I had no energy. Esale asked me, Clare and Kate to go with her a pottery place outside of town which I couldn't pass up. I'm not exactly sure where it was located but it was about a 40 minute drive. This was my first real experience outside of the city (the drive to Rustenberg doesn't count for me!) and it was interesting to see. There were farm animal roaming all around and many of them were not fenced in. Esale said it's like that most places and in fact a lot of time people will take their goats out to graze in the morning and they just find their way back home. I thought that was pretty interesting. I bought entirely way too much stuff at the pottery place but I couldn't resist. I got an entire coffee set (Coffee pot, sugar container, creamer container, 4 cups, 4 saucers) for less than 45 dollars. That is a steal by comparison to what I would pay for the same quality in the U.S. I also got a casserole dish for about 15 dollars but now all these goods pose a problem...how do I get them home? If I wasn't going to Cape Town I wouldn't worry about it nearly as much. Or even if we were just staying in one hotel the entire time but we plan on bouncing around a bit and these items are going to make my luggage very heavy. Dr. Bates said I could ship it back, which obviously I knew but I worry about them being transported safely in terms of breaking and being stolen. I may just pack them in my big suitcase while I head to Cape Town and then put them in my carry on bags for the long haul home. I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to head back. It's not that I'm not having a good time but there are a number of things I miss..like my own big bed, plastic shower curtains to keep the water from leaking out, my own car, not having to translate the cost of something in my head, cold milk for cereal, the sun and of course my family, friends and boyfriend. Maybe if I could bring all those things here then I'd be content? At least what we have coming up is exciting so I can't help but look forward to it! Next week is my last week at Baylor. On Thursday some of us are presenting at a conference being held at UB and Kate and I have decided to attend the morning lectures. Our presentation is on multicultural counseling and specifically our part is to discuss how our experiences here have shaped up and how we will carry it with as when we go back to the U.S. Saturday we leave for Kasane at 5am or so. It's a 10-12 hour bus ride to the safari we're going to. Apparently we're staying in a very nice lodge so that's good. We get back on Tuesday afternoon after doing an open air jeep tour and a river boat tour. We should have the opportunity to see a lot of animals, including the big 5. I will of course take tons of pictures! Then on Thursday morning we leave Gaborone and had to Joburg. from there the 6 of us (me, Clare, Mandy, Zach, Kate K, and Meg) will head to Cape Town while the other's head back home. It's gonna be quite an adventure!

7/6/09 Fairly certain nothing too exciting happened today. Beside the fact that my A key fell off which is in fact not exciting but irritating. Do you know how many words have A in them?

Tonight Mandy and I decided to watch a movie. I streamed The Proposal on to my little computer. It was funny to see both of us in a twin bed with this little bitty computer on our laps watching a movie. I liked the movie even if it was a fairly typical chick flick...what can I say, I'm a sucker for a happy ending and love stories :)

7/7/09 Breakfast hit the spot this morning. And so did lunch. And then so did dinner. How did I get so lucky in one day?! Breakfast was an egg scrambler, toast and this meat stuff that's surprisingly good, corn flakes and coffee. Lunch I had a half of a cheese omelette (can you tell breakfast is my favorite meal yet?) a biscuit, cole slaw, french fries and coke. Interesting combo but it was yummy. For dinner I had bread, mixed veggies, french fries, a chicken leg and the most delicious beef. Ok enough about the food..
At work today Kate and I continued to design the brochure. She had went ahead and put it in Microsoft publisher and we were on the hunt for free clip art and things to jazz the pages up a bit. It looks decent so far. After lunch we went to some of the Paediatric KITSO trainings on disclosure and counseling children and adolescents with HIV/AIDS. They were both really interesting and I took some notes. I don't know why I didn't think to bring a notebook with me.. but I've just been using the backs of sheets from other talks we've sat in on to jot down the important stuff. Once we got home from Baylor I decided I was going to finish Nineteen Minutes. Considering I'm not much of a fan of books anymore, I can say this one was definitely worth reading. I like books that keep my attention the way this one did but I'm glad to be done with it. I can't decide if I want to start another one or just call it quits. That's part of the other reason I don't read like I use to...I let the book consume me. I have the most difficult time putting it down. People were making funny of me because I brought it over when were playing catch prase the other night but that's how I am when I'm intrigued, I become engulfed.

I was just in the grumpiest mood a few minutes ago. Like I mentioned earlier my A key fell off so I was thinking about how annoying its been and decided that maybe I could fix it. Turns out one of the clip parts on the actual key is broken so I took my Q off and moved it to my A spot which has been extremely helpful. Then my E key started sticking so I popped it off, thinking there was dirt or something under it and one of the piece underneath that broke. So now that's barely hanging on but thanksfully because of the way I type the E hasn't been to troublesome, I can still hit it because it actually leans forward now. Anyway, the whole or deal last an hour and a half and was very close to ending with me throwing my computer across the room. (one of the downfalls of it being so light weight..) but I think I can make this work until I get home.. I already sent in request asking Dell to get me new keys. ughhh and now I just took a cold shower...awesome!

Happy Birthday Andrew & America :)

7/3/09 Today is Andrew's birthday! I really wish I could be there to celebrate with him but I already told him I'll make it up to him when I get home. He received his birthday package yesterday, thanks to my mom who wrapped and sent it to him. Of course he didn't wait until today to open it but I guess that's understandable. I don't know that I would have been able to either lol I got him a webcam so we can use skype when we're away from each other. Even though calling his phone from my skype is relatively inexpensive, this way will make it free and sometimes we can video chat and see each other. I didn't just get it because of this trip. As many people know he is planning on joining the Marine next year and may be away for extend periods of time. (Hopefully not too often). I also made him a picture album with a lot of our pictures over the last year and half. Next to each picture I found a quote that related to what we were doing. It wasn't completely finished when I had to leave for this trip but I promised him that I will finish it when I get back. I also got him a new St. Florian pendant (patron Saint of firefighters) because his last one fell off his chain somewhere. He seemed to really like his gifts! I'm lucky that I will be back just before my birthday and that we will be able to spend it togetherbut I told him I'd share the spot light :) He is going to try and come down when the day I get home and stay through Monday since my birthday is that day. I'm really excited and I think he is too!

At work today I continued to work on the caregiver support group information. Lately, I have come across a number of resources from Africa which has been a big help. Previously I could only locate American studies and some of their information is not culturally applicable to the people here. Kate and I sent out adherence brochure to Mmapula, Lindsay & Bakani to get feedback so that we can focus on making the template in Microsoft publisher next week. I hope that we're able to complete this project before we leave. Today was also Stu's last day at Baylor so everyone took him out to lunch. We went to a place at Main Mall, I'm not sure of the name but it was in the upstairs part of a building and we set on a balcony that overlooked the street vendors. The food was pretty good but I couldn't eat everything they gave me! We decided to have a night in and play catch phrase & jenga. It was nice to relax a little bit and not have to worry about getting ready. I was feel very unmotivated! Almost everyone was crammed into one of our apartments and having a pretty good time!

7/4/09 Happy 4th of July! It's a real bummer to not be at home for this holiday as it is one of my favs! I love to watch fireworks and see everyone dressed in red, white & blue. Someone called the U.S. Embassy hear to see if they were doing anything to celebrate but they weren't which was a little disappointing. It's probably because Botswana is a relatively small country and there aren't enough American vistors to warrant a grandiose celebration. Hopefully they at least gave all their workers the day off! I decided to hand wash more of my clothes early in the afternoon and set out side while they dried for a while but it was pretty chilly so I had to go in. I've been reading "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult so I was able to make quite a bit of progress while I waited on my clothes. The book is incredibly interesting. I typically hate reading which is kind of weird since I was obsessed when I was little. I nearly always had a book in my hand but then I lost interest. This is the first book since The da Vinci Code that I'll complete. I probably have 100 pages left out 455. It's about a high school shooting and I really think that every high school freshman should have to read it to get a better look at how their actions can affect people. The other girls went to Main Mall and Riverwalk but I just didn't feel like walking their or spending money. We decided to go to Bull & Bush again and it would have been better for me had my stomach not hurt most of the time. I probably should have just stayed in with Kate! She hasn't been feeling well and thinks she might have the flu. I hope that she gets to feeling better soon!

Happy Holidays Botswana

6/30/09 Play group was interesting today. At first I was sitting at the table with the kids who were coloring, reading, drawing and playing with legos while Kate played some sports out in the more open area. We try to split up between the kids so that we can keep an eye on them. Eventually we switch places once I was given the checkin sheet and was roaming around trying to get the kids to sign in. It's pretty difficult to communicate with some of the younger one but thankfully the older kids who would understand me helped me ask them to fill it out and gave them instructions in Setswana about what the paper said, since it was also in English. The interesting part of today was this little girl, she was probably 4 years old and had been out earlier but she obviously had a problem with the toddler boy sitting on Kate's lap. She pretty much kept attacking him and trying to grab him, cover his face, pull his arms, take off his shoes, etc. She was the first real problem child we have had, which I find amazing because as Clare mentioned in our meeting yesterday from her experience at a daycare at home that most of the time large groups of young kids are difficult to manage, but not these kids. I've only had to ask one boy to share as he seemed to monopolize the badmitton birdie but after I asked him to please share he did. And then like I mentioned the little girl was a bit of a handful but one of the local woman talked to her and sent her inside. I fele like that would happen every day in the States. When I say it's time to clean up I hear no cries or whines but begging to help me pack things up and carry things in...I wonder what they do that these kids that causes this level of obedience?

We don't have work tomorrow so I decided to update my facebook and load as many of my pictures from the trip as possible. I'm almost done. I just have to put up the ones from the soccer game and then of course I'll have whatever else I take tomorrow. I'm excited to sleep in..we'll see if it actually happens though. I have a difficult time sleeping in at home and this isn't my bed so I can see myself having trouble here as well. I can tell I'm getting use to it here because I wake up 2 minutes before my alarm almost every day. I hate that though.. I like getting my maximum amount of sleep!

I was in kind of a grumpy mood today just because I'm getting irritated by certain things and people. I'm trying to get the most I can out of this experience and there are just some things that make it very difficult. I realize that we all have bad days and that being in a place with cultural differences, we will have experience that irritate us and we feel the need to vent but sometimes I feel like I hear the same complaints over and over. It's usually not even the complaint that really bothers me because I get it and I've complained about a few things more than once myself. It's more of the inability to move on and not let it interfere with the rest of the day or experience and how that experience will rub off on their interactions with other group members. I've literally had to remove myself from situations but I guess that's better than letting it ruin my day as well. People have probably heard me say that this trip should be Survival style (vote people off) and there are times when

I'm not kidding! I wouldn't mind sending the "Negative Nancy's" back to the States for the rest of our sakes. Maybe just the threat of that possibility would cause some attitude change in people? Maybe? But in all honesty, everyone has brought something to the table on this trip whether it be different knowledge, experience, wisdom, humor, insight, etc and I HAVE appreciated that. I've enjoyed getting to know people that I may have never had the opportunity to if it wasn't for the this trip and can say that I will walk away with some new friends. I've always enjoyed the getting closer to people that I already had established friendships. For instance, Clare and I have been friends for 5 years but saw ourselves drift apart in some respects. Although, whenever we would hang out it never felt awkward or like anything had changed it has still been nice to hang out like we use to my sophomore year! I've missed that a lot!!

We had a meeting with Eslea and Lesego last night to touch basis on some house rules. They seem quite pleased with how living with us has been so that's good news. They did say that want us to mop the bathroom better after we shower which I understand completely but it kind of grosses me out to have to wring out the mop by hand after I'm all clean in the shower. Seems counter intuitive but I'll just have to scrub my hands with soap when I'm done. They also mentioned that it is very against their cultural beliefs to wash hair or laundry in the kitchen sink so I hope they never see my blog haha I mean I understand but at the same time if we have no water then I'm gonna do what I have to do to be clean. My hair simply cannot go 3 days without being washed and the sinks in the bathroom are too tiny to fit a head so while I can respect their wishes 99% of the time there may be incidences where we have to compromise is the way I see it. Anyway, they have been great people to live with and really want to hang out with us more which I like. We are going to try to have a group dinner some time next week and they want to take us to Lesego's village which I think will be a very cool experience!

7/1/09 Today was a holiday, the birthday of Botswana's former president, so we all had the day off. YAY! I didn't go to bed last night until almost 3am I believe..whoops! I slept with my eye mask on to help block out the sun in the morning. I was a little afraid I was going to wake up in the middle of the night and think I was blind haha That could be scary.

Nonetheless I still woke up at 8:30am. Serious disappointment but I hear every little thing so as soon as I heard someone walking around it was over. I was hungry though so I didn't mind heading to breakfast. My plan was to get a full belly then head back to bed but I realized I really needed a shower and Clare had borrowed a converter so I thought I'd treat myself to blow dried hair since I've only done it once this entire trip since our's blew up haha The converter was more of a pain than anything because it would stay firmly plugged in so I had to hold it with one hand and the blow dryer in the other ugh.. I will stick to air drying. I started reading a book called "Nineteen Minutes" that Clare gave me so instead of napping I became engulfed in that. It's the kind of book that really grips your attention. It's about a school shooting in a small town. Clare was saying that it was haunting her dreams and she would think about it a lot. Now that I'm reading it I can understand. While I haven't dreamed about it, I found myself thinking about the description of the school and where the shooter was going while I was walkingthrough a UB's building alone. Everyone was waiting for the bus outside so I ran into to go to the bathroom quickly and the writer's words were trickling into my mind as I navigated the halls. Kind of creepy.

We went to the Gaborone Game Reserve. It was nice to see some more animals but I'm most excited for Chobe when we'll see the big 5: Elephants, Lions, Hippos, Rhinos and Giraffes! The monkey were nuts here...especially when we stopped by the park part where people can have picnics. They were EVERYWHERE. This one would just hang out in the middle of the road sitting like a person. And then there will babies that were so tiny. I thought one was going to jump out of the tree onto my face which was a bit scary but it didn't thankfully! Here are some pictures of the various animals: (Note that many of the images are of the animal's butts, for some reason they kept turning around...maybe that means they didn't like us? lol)

After the game reserve we headed to Kgale Hill. It was getting close to sunset so we literally ran up the hill. About 3/4 of the way up Mandy and I took a break. Our hearts were pounding out of our chests! We both concluded that we are ridiculously out of shape lol I didn't expect the "trail"to be so arbitrary. It start off as a nice well beated dirt path and then as we inclinded it was pretty much just rocks. I think if had gone a little slower initially I would have been fine. It makes me want to go back to the Smokey's trek around there! It was really nice watching the sunset over the horizon. I love sunsets :)

After that we headed over to Hagan's Irish Pub for dinner. We were all really feeling the atmosphere until it took 2 hours for out table to get their food. The place was dead when we got there and yes it did fill up but you would assume being the first people there it wouldn't take that long but it did. I had to order 3 times because they were out of the first 2 things I wanted. It didn't put me in the best food because I was starving and our drivers were coming in 15 minutes by the time we ordered for the last time! I literally took all my food in a to-go box and barely ate any of it. My appetite has severly decreased the last two days. I picked at dinner the night before and breakfast and lunch today. I don't know what my problem is..I feel alright so who knows. Clare and I had both been told by coworkers to try a Flaming Lambourghini shot at this restaurant so we did. It was quite intense.

Upon returning home I was absolutely exhausted and just not in the mood to be around people any longer. Sometimes I need time to myself and that was one of those times. I read a little more of my book and crashed early.. like 10pm early. Waking up today was much easier though. I feel like a million bucks! Off to Baylor for another exciting day, I'm sure!

Coffee Count as of 7/2/09: 40

Futbol: South Africa v. Spain

6 of the 14 of us that attended the game!

(Me, J.W., Lisa, Kate, Josh & Stu)

I had a pretty late night because I ended up chatting with Andrew for quite awhile when I got home. It was a good conversation and well worth adding to my sleep deprivation :) I'm really excited to see him when I get back. We've already started making some plans for things we want to do together and he's working extra hours the next couple weeks so that he can take a day or two off and we can spend a long weekend together which is a really nice thing for him to do! I can't wait!

I haven't done the coffee count in awhile..I'm trying hard to remember and I think it's around 28 for the end of week 2 lol

We left Gaborone at 9am, stopping by Riverwalk for snacks first as we headed to Rustenberg, South Africa. It was a 3 hour drive (only about 25 minutes to the SA border though). The roads here are not very well paved so it was a bit bumpy but nothing I haven't experienced before. The coolest part of the drive was when we saw two giraffe on the side of the road! I wish I had been able to get pictures but we were on the highway so by the time I got my camera out we were too far past. I'm sure I will see more when we go on the safari but it was pretty cool seeing them just hanging out in the wild so close to the road.

Our car was pretty full but it worked! We met Dr. Ryan at the McDonalds in Rustenberg then headed toward the stadium. We actually parked at the Olympia stadium and took a Kombi to the stadium where the game was held. It was an absolutely beautiful day so I

was thankful for that! Our seats were also pretty good. We were about 4 rows from the field. We're thinking that because we were on the side where the sun shines the whole time that that was how we scored cheap awesome seats. But whatever, I'm tired of the cold so the sun on me for a few hours was worth it. I'll squint, no problem! I'm not really that into soccer but there are a lot of sports that I find to be much more interesting at the games opposed to on tv and this was one of them. Because the game was hosted in SA and they were playing, there were a ton of people there and they were so enthusiastic! The only thing I didn't like were their noise makers. I found them to be obnoxious, especially the ones that sounds like a God awful child whining! Whoever invented that is on my shit list! We left about 5 minutes before it was officially over..SA had just score the first goal of the game and we assumed it was over. Once we were in the Kombi we heard they had scored again so then we really thought it was over but boy were we wrong. Apparently Spain tied it up and it went into overtime and Spain ended up winning. Kind of a bummer! Even more so once the U.S. ended up blowing their 2-0 lead to lose to Brazil. I think I'm a bad luck charm because every time I watch a championship game, the team I'm rooting for loses. Here are some pictures from the game:

Happy Birthday Zach!

Me & 16 year old Truth (the literal translation of his name) aka Stacks, one of the teen leaders of Teen Club Gaborone

I have yet to sleep in on this trip. Everyday there is something going on that I don't want to miss so yet again I sacrificed my weekend possible sleep in time but it was worth it! We met at Baylor at 8:30am to get ready and do some ice breakers. When everyone was standing in a circle it hit me that all of these young people are infected with HIV. I would like to say that I wasn't scared but there was a part of me that really was. I realize that the treatments are much more sophisticated

and that a number of these teens were not expected to live past their childhood and yet they are emerging into adulthood but the thought of living with this kind of disease is still very frightening to me. Eventually we headed to a nearby park and played sports with the older kids. Clare came, which was great because I had another athletically challenged person with me lol We chose to be on the tennis courts with some of the kids and played tennis (no net though), badmitton, and hula hooped. The kids were definitely better than me but that's not surprise! We got to meet some of the other volunteers and the Lindsay (the psychologist) who was very nice but super busy! We would love to work with her more but it's understandable that there is just too much going on at this moment. She said she will be out of the country again on Tuesday/Wednesday but hopefully we can discuss the group cirriculum when she gets back. I'm having difficulty finding information on HIV/AIDS Caregiver Support that I feel would be culturally appropriate. I'm hoping that they have some resources I can look at next week to get a better idea.

After teen club, Clare and I were worn out so we decided to nap. Unfortunately there were a dozen or so people in our apartment cooking a big birthday dinner for our roommates sister so it was a bit loud, even with ear plugs. I talked to Andrew for a little bit before finally falling asleep..I got about an hour in despite the noise so I can't complain too much. After I woke up I did some laundry the old fashion way and then got ready for our big night out. It was Zach's

birthday so most of the group headed to the Grand Palm casino. The place was AMAZING as we pulled up! I wish I could have gotten a picture but it was kind of dark and I

was in the back of the bus. We gambled for a little bit before one of the best meals I've ever had. Andrew asked me if was better than the Hacinda Sisel in Cancun, but I'm not sure I can really compare the two because it was different cuisine. Since the Gand Palm buffet didn't offer mexican which is a fav of mine, I will have to say Hacinda ranks first and Grand Palm is second lol Nonetheless, I stuffed my face...I included the pictures to prove it below lol I'm almost embarrassed to have these on here but what can I say, I wanted my P135 (a little over $25 dollars) worth haha I'm pretty sure I had 5 plates of food and thought my stomach was going to explode! After all my delicious desserts (apple pie a la mode, eclair, ice cream with sprinkles and chocolate chips) we went back to the casino while we waited for the bus. While we were there this Chinese woman came up Clare and asked her where she was from, then told her she was very pretty and insisted that she meet her husband. She literally drug her around the casino for a few minutes. She was a bit overbearing but I know she meant well. She did eventually get her husband and introduce them to Clare. It was kind of funny but I know Clare was a little thrown off!

After we left the casino we headed to Fashion Lounge. I liked how the bar was set up but there weren't very many people there initially. The bartenders said that people don't show up until 15 after midnight. Kind of late to pay the kind of cover they were charging! We've come to the conclusion that the 20 of us bring the party wherever we are anyway so it didn't make much of a difference. I was so exhausted from being up all day and running around but I got pretty tired so I had sit down for a little bit. It was still a lot of fun to take Zach out and he seemed to be having a really good time! Below are some of the other pictures I have from the night.

Zach's bday cake at the Grand Palm Casino restaurant and birthday shots with friends!

Meg & I at Fashion Lounge and the whole kombi on the way back from Zach's bday celebration

Linga Longa

Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinic Centre of Excellence

The last couple days have been basically the same. Wake up at 6:45 or 7, sometimes shower.. other times just get ready for work and hop online to read whatever message Andrew has sent me and write him back before UB blocks facebook for the day lol then we head to breakfast from 8-8:30 and walk to Baylor during which my feet are usually nearly frozen. Note to self: when they say its winter it's probably smart to bring shoes that cover your feet at least for the mornings and evenings! After dodging several lanes of traffic and probably almost getting hit by kombis because I continue to look the wrong way before crossing we make it to the clinic and head to the Visiting Scholar's room. We've been continuing to compile information for the Caregivers Adherence Brochure and were almost done. We just need to meet with Mmapula to make sure we got all the info she wanted and edit out some of less important info and decide how to best articulate the concepts. Bakani (the social worker) and Lindsay (the psychologist) have been wanting to create a couple different groups. Kate and I are try9ing to determine what we cand o to assist in this process and have decided to focus on the Caregivers Support Group and Child/Adolescent Grief and Breavement group. We hope to create a cirriculum that they can use once they set the group sup as the screening process has yet to be completed.

Some of the art from inside the conference room at Baylor

In the mornings we run the play group which is basically just hanging out with the little kids and playing games as they wait for their appointments. Yesterday I hula-hooped with a little girl for awhile and then played some soccer with the boys. Two young girls taught me some hand clap games they play. One was called Shakah and the other they sang to the ABC's song. Today I played badmitton with a couple different groups of kids and then sat with one of the boys who seemed pretty tired after only a few minutes of activity. He told me was 10 years old and about to turn 11 in a few days. I would have guessed he was 6 or 7 based on his size, his language on the other hand definitely gave way to his older age as he spoke nearly perfect English to me. He told me all about his family: his younger brother and two younger sisters. Apparently his one sister was bitten by a snake but said it wasn't that bad lol He also said that they don't live with him and that he is currently not going to school because he wants to go to a better school but has to wait for his parents to have the money to send him. He told me he had 4 dogs and 2 cats (which I found surprising since most people in Botswana do not like pets and especially not cats) but that his neighbor killed his dog as revenge, but he didn't say revenge for what. He said that some bad men came into his house and stole his television and that his father had to call the police. His mother was with him at the clinic and came out at one point. He told me she said that he could stay and talk to me until he was done. We probably talked for another 15 minutes and then I encouraged him to meet up with her because I felt bad that she has been waiting. I walked him up to meet her and she was very nice. I told her what a nice young boy he was and she seemed to appreciate the compliment. I wonder if I'll see him again since most of the kids only come in once a month. After that some of the older girls sat down with me and I helped them make some bracelets out of this random string we had laying around. They were pretty excited about them and I have one too! Some of the other girls in my group were saying that the little kids love their hair and run their hands through it all the time which I hadn't previously experienced but today while we were making the bracelets they kept touching my hair and going on and on about it in Setswana...finally one of the girls told me that they were saying I had smooth hair and they really liked it haha

Wedneday night we decided not to go out and watch the game and to just hang in instead. Kind of a bummer considering the U.S. upset Spain in futbol. Probably would have been really fun to watch with a bunch of the locals and other international vistors but we played some catch phrase, which of course I enjoyed. I got to call Andrew from skype and talked to him for about 12 minutes so that was nice. You never really realize how much you miss a person's voice until you hear it again! He's been good about sending me little messages every chance he gets so that's definitely helped but nonetheless it was nice to talk to him!

Last night (Thursday) we went to Linga Longa at Riverwalk to watch the Brazil/South Africa game. Josh and J.W. from work came also so it was a good time. It was a pretty crowded place so we had to stand the whole time ugh but we were only there til 10:45ish. Everyone wants to try and get tickets the U.S./Brazil game this Sunday so we'll see what happens with that!

The only thing different about today at work is we went out to lunch at Main Mall..there were actually quite a few of us: Me, Kate, J.W., Josh, Ed, Stu, Lisa & Maryah so it was nice to get to know a few other people. We went to KFC lol and it tasted pretty much like it does in the States. I particularly enjoyed their mash & gravy but was slightly disappointed that they didn't have mac & cheese or even some kind of variation. They do not seem to eat cheese here at all which I find disturbing because to me,

cheese is its own food group separate from dairy lol

1st Pic: Roommates (Kate, Mandy, Me & Clare) at Linga Longa

2nd Pic: Baylor Scholars (Me, Josh, Kate & J.W.)

I'm not really sure what the plan is tonight but I know we cancelled dinner...people were talking about going to get pizza (we all miss it!) or maybe I'll eat the P&J I had originally packed for lunch lol Clare had said something about going to see a movie (the Hangover, which I didn't get a chance to see before leaving) and some other people mentioned going to Bull & Bush again or somewhere similar. Whatever the case, I'm sure it will be fun. Go siame! (Goodbye: pronounced Ho see-ah-may)

"Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart- it's all a person has." -Hubert H. Humphrey

Our sugar packets have insightful quotations on them and I've been collecting them daily so the title of this blog is from a packet I got last week. It fact, quote are incorporated in a number of places and there's something uplifting about seeing them throughout the day.

Something interesting popped into my head yesterday but I forgot to write about it. Since we've been here we've heard so much about how Motswana (They aren't called Botswanans like you might think) really care about their neighbor and will go out of their way for people they don't even know. And we've seen it as we've gone around the city and in our interactions with quite a few people. But despite this idea of camaraderie they are very worried about crime. There was a letter on our table about preventing theft in the apartments and it's not just locking your doors when you're gone, it's locking them when you're there which is not really something I'm use to. I just find it a little strange that a place that seems to have such a community, help thy neighbor, greet everyone you see attitude can have such a concern for theft. You would think that not stealing from your neighbor would just be implied. Maybe I'll ask someone to explain this to me.

(Pic: the 4 of us were crammed in the back of Pearl's car but you can only see Mandy & I in the pic haha)

Today was me & Kate's second day at Baylor. When we got there Dr. Ryan sent us off to a lecture which was really interesting. It was the KITSO training (Kitso means knowledge but is also an acronym) about Pediatric and Adolescent medicine dosage and adherence. Dr. Ryan was explaining that at Baylor adherence to taking medications is one of the biggest problems because if they fail to take their medicine at the right time they can develop and immunity and lower the longevity of their life. Dr. Partha who also works at Baylor and gave the psychosocial part of the lecture discussed ways to approach the disease with young children. He suggested describing the medicine as a way to help the child's soliders become stronger because there is a bad guy that makes them weak but when you take your medicine correctly he goes to sleep. This is essentially telling the truth about the disease, it attacks (the bad guy-HIV) a person's CD4 cells (soliders) and makes the child ill but if they take their medicine the viral load is lessen (putting the bad guy to sleep). He also expressed that full disclosure can be an important aspect of a child's medical and psychological health because they don't have secrets and have access to clinical, familial, social support that they may not if they don't disclose but he made it very clear that public disclosure is not usually that beneficial because of the stigma associated with the disease. Overall the presentation was insightful and I'm glad we were able to attend. It was interesting to be the only two white people attending though I'm not sure noticed initially. I felt bad that we had to leave as soon as he was done, it would have been nice to mingle with some of other people in attendance to see what kind of work they do but Dr. Partha said it was mainly pediatricians and doctors attending.

When we got back we helped Stu finish taking pictures of x-rays and labeling them. I'm amazed at how sloppy doctors write. I mean I knew it was bad but you would think they would at least make the name legible so that you know they could find the right file?! I did my best and now that project is completed. We also briefly met with the social worker and basically set up a meeting to meet with her and the psychologist tomorrow to discuss possibly creating the curriculum for parenting/caregiver groups that they have wanted to start. Then we had another lecture to go to called Better Medicine for Children, If Not Now...When? by Stuart MacLeod, a member of the World Health Organization. He was mainly discussing the lack of clinical testing of medication on children and how this can be detrimental. In the past 75% of drugs on the market had not been tested on children and yet were prescribed to them just the say. That's pretty scary if you ask me! I was getting pretty annoyed though because being "on time" is completely relative here. I could have showed up to the lecture 30 minutes into it and I don't think anyone would have cared, except maybe Dr. Ryan. People were coming in and out during almost the entire thing and it made it very difficult for me to focus on what he was saying. I felt completely distracted the entire time but as I looked around, it didn't seem like anyone else was phased by it. I can get being laid back but I guess to me it just felt really disrespectful to

have people showing up 40 minutes into the lecture and making so much noise while someone is trying to give a presentation. When we met with Dr. Ryan again he had talked to Mmpula about a pamphlet project they wanted us to work on so we have a meeting with her tomorrow morning to discuss what she needs from us. So it looks like we will be put to you!

I'm so tired anymore. I really think it's the lack of sunlight in the evenings because it just makes me think it's bed time. I laid down for a little after work but never really fell asleep. It's always pretty loud. The walls are thick but the doors are not at all so you hear every little thing. I think the other reason I was so tired today is because I was basically up from 4 something to 6:45 because the outside door kept slamming from the wind. I almost went crazy and knocked it down!! I hope it doesn't do that tonight.

Tonight Thato and Pearl took us to Square Market to get some groceries. Mandy and Kate have to pack their lunch unless they want to eat fat cakes and chips every day lol and I decided I wouldn't mind packing mine from time to time to avoid having to eat the same 6 items for lunch and dinner nearly everyday for a month! So I got some bread, peanut butter, jelly and chips to take with me.

(Pic:Here's Mandy and her sweet treat! I got 2 ice creams also but I'm saving them for later!)

Again, I don't have many pictures but there wasn't really anything to take pictures of today so I'll try to get some tomorrow because I know this is much more fun to look at when you can see the things I'm doing! I'm going to go shower and relax some before I head to bed. I may try to hit the sack again early in hopes that I will get a good nights rest!

5 Cow Special

I had my first day at BIPAI and it started off a little rough. We all loaded on to the bus and began to get dropped off. The advisors dropped us off and came into to ensure we were received. Unfortunately, the current program coordinator didn't know that we were specifically coming and was a little thrown off. He was really nice though and kept saying it wasn't out fault but that it does cause some problems because they have certain protocol that they follow pretty strictly. He took Kate and I into a conference room to ask some questions about our education background, experience, goals for our time there, interests, etc. He was really nice and helpful and seems to feel confidently that we can find some way to get involved. The staff psychologist and social worker were both out of the office today. The SW came back later and we met with her briefly before we headed home and will meet tomorrow afternoon to do paperwork and other logistical tasks.

After meeting with Dr. Ryan we met Ed who is in charge of a lot of their work with teenagers invited us to work with him and to go to their Teen Club meeting this Saturday. http://botswanateenclub.wordpress.com/ They get together once a month with adolescents and play sports and offer educational information about HIV/AIDS and provide life skills training. This Saturday they will be doing football drills (remember, that's soccer in the States) and doing a crime prevention lesson. Kate and I are going to attend and Clare said she's interested in going too so I hope it's a good experience.

Stu took us down the play group area which is typically outside in a decently open space that also has tables so kids can play with blocks, legos, read books, color, etc. But when it's colder or raining they have the group in under the stairwell which is a pretty small space. It would be great if they could somehow get a covering for the outside area and an outdoor heater to keep it warmer. I spent most of my time helping a little guy build a lego house. He was so adorable. I taught him how to give me five and he would just get the biggest smile on his face every time I put out my hand. It was a little weird knowing that all the kids we were with had HIV or AIDS, not because of the disease itself but because they seemed so lively and smart. A couple of them knew very good English which seemed surprising since they appeared quite young and we were told that English isn't usually taught until they are 6 years old. They helped teach us some words also so it was a learning experience. I need to write down some common sentences so that I can refer to it and communicate better with them as Setswana is mostly the preferred language of the kids.

We went to the "Visiting Scholars" office with Stu (another intern from Michigan State) and we were able to get on the computer and read some more material about the organization. We also met a few other interns: Josh, Lisa, JW and a new employee B2. I was reading about these Hero Books that they have children create which seemed really interesting but also seemed like they would take a long time to complete. http://botswanateenclub.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/making_a_hero_book.pdf But I really like the concept of them and it reminded me of the Lifebook Shawna (another intern at OU's Counseling & Psychological Services) had told me a lot of Social Workers utilize with adopted children.

By the time we ate lunch, I was absolutely starving. I felt like I had a hearty breakfast and I'm still amazed that I get hungry for meals because of how much I eat during them but apparently I'm just burning right through the calories! Stu, JW & Josh took us out to the Main Mall area to get some food. I didn't catch the name of the place but it was traditional Botswana cuisine and really good. After that we headed back but it was pretty much time for us to leave. We lucked out because we are only about 5 minutes from our organization so we can walk to and from and avoid the long bus ride others have to take. Everyone was really friendly and seem like they do a lot of stuff together, they already invited us to hang out this weekend so we might go do something fun, it will just depend on everything else we have going on. The name of this post actually comes from lunchtime.. as we were walking to Main Mall, Stu was telling me how on a number of occasions mothers have offered him their young daughters because they want them to marry white men. A lot of families still use a dowry system which is why they would tell him you can have my daughter for 5 cows...this is a special price as the traditional village we went to said that 8-9 cows was standard, hence, 5 cow special.

We got back at like 3:30 in the afternoon and I decided to take a little nap. It was realively short lived as most of my naps here have been. I swear I can hear every little thing, and it probably doesn't help that I'm the room closets to the outside hall because I hear everyone coming in and out of their apts. After some other people got back we attempted to go to the bookstore but it was closed. Everything closes really early here. Then we headed to our first meeting to discuss how everyone's first day and first week has been. A couple people shared moments that really made them uncomfortable while they have been here. I'm grateful that they did share those stories even though it seemed difficult for them because it really helped put some things in perspective for me and will force me to keep remembering that being the minority carries certain implications unfortunately.

One of the downfalls of this place is that because it is a clinic there are a lot of regulations and we cannot take pictures or anything like that. It's was kind of a bummer to see other peoples pictures with the kid and how cute they look and to just see all the stuff they do and know that I can't really offer that for my friends and family. They do have awesome art work everywhere and the clinic tends to not to have very many clients after 3pm so I'm going to run around with my camera and get some snap shots of the things I like which I can post.

Well that's about it for today... I'm going to go over to the boys room and watch a movie and organize some things for tomorrow!

First Day at Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative

I'm up and ready for my first day! Heading to breakfast (and probably having 3 cups of coffee) then out to the bus so we can all get dropped off... the bus pick up makes me feel like we're in middle school again! Wish me Luck!!

P.S. Coffee Count Total for week 1 = 18

wow..either this stuff is not strong or I'm immune to caffeine!

Welcome to the Sunday Sermon

We woke up bright and early today and headed to Mmshumi's church. It kind of looked like an old strip mall that they had taken over and turned various building into different departmens like an office and then they had the actual chapel. When we first got there we stood outside for awhile, at first I was wondering if there was a problem with us coming but it turns out they pulled out all the stops for us. We were sitting in the main building 3 and 4 rows back from the stage, behind some of the elder preachers. We passed people sitting outside, and just a reminder it's winter in Botswana, under tents for the 2 1/2 hour service. I kind of felt bad being inside when so many people were outside because it is definitely colder in the morning. But they seriously wear sweaters and coats all day and it will be in the mid 70s! It's funny becuase they are like "It's winter, it's coooold!" and we're like "This weather is great!" We were all starving when we left church because I don't think anyone thought it was going to last until 10:30 and none of us had time to eat breakfast which we have become accustomed too. They served our breakfast at 11:00ish but a couple of us had to wait almost a half hour for food which wasn't a big deal except they said lunch would be at 12:30 and there was no way we were going to be hungry. Breakfast was good so I really wasn't hungry until dinner anyway and because we didn't eat lunch we missed out on live....oh darn! lol

Thato and Pearl came and took Me, Kate, Clare & Mandy to Game City for a girls day! I got a couple things.. a cute dressy top that's gold, a white long blouse, a pair of gladiator heels, and a necklace all for like 70 dollars. I can't get over how cheap things are. I'll spend hundreds of pula

but it only amounts to 30 dollars or something. Crazy. It's good to know that my shoe shopping problem translates across cultures but I love what I bought so far! I think Kate, my former college roommate for those of you who don't know, would be very proud of my collection! She's is the queen of shoes and it's definitely rubbed off on me!

Tonight after we napped and went to dinner we decided to go to the courts. Some people were playing basketball and soccer but some of the other girls decided to do our own exercises. We did a mini pilates work out and lunges, squats and ran. It felt good to do some physical activity because besides walking I dunno that I have done much. I think we're going to start making it a daily thing just because most of us feel better and have more energy when we work out in some capacity. Apparently there is a gym we have access to so that would be nice to figure out.

Tomorrow we start our placements. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I'm anxious to see what they will have us do. Here is the link for the their website if you want to check it out: http://bayloraids.org/africa/center.shtml and of course I'll let everyone know tomorrow how the first day was! I hope I can sleep tonight because I'm so excited!!!

I called my parents today. I finally figured out my skype account so I put money on it so I could wish my dad a happy father's day. The phone cut out a bit so I didn't exactly get to say goodbye but it was nice nonetheless. I let Mandy use it to because she doesn't have a computer and we still don't have phones here. It seemed like her parents enjoyed hearing from her. That's one thing I've really enjoyed about this trip, everyone has been sharing with everyone. Anytime anyone needs anything there's someone offering to help out, which isn't how things always are. I also called Andrew to say goodnight. We've mainly been using facebook chat and messages so it was nice to hear his voice. Well of course it's midnight already (where does the time go?) Broko.

Cow Stomach = Yuck! Fete de la Musique = Tres Bien!

These early mornings are straight killing me!!! You would think that I would be use to them because of my internship but unfortunately there was one week in between the ending of that and this trip and I got somewhat use to sleeping in... well at least until 9-9:30. We were out quite late last night though I slept like a log so that was good. Unfortunately I'm an idiot and left my ipod alarm set from the day before so I had the lovely Taylor Swift singing to me at 6:45am. I just went back to sleep for about a half hour, but it wasn't good sleep. So basically I'm running on 4.5 hours of sleep. Good call. I believe it was worth it...

We had our last class meeting. We played this game where you take 7 different beads and they represent important people in your life: mom, dad, brother, sister, best friend, etc and then you go to stations and roll a die. Depending on the number it lands on there are

instructions on the card telling you what to do. There were 6 stations and my life went like this 1) Life goes on as normal 2)

My mom is infected with HIV 3) My mom dies from AIDS 4) My grandma dies of malaria 5) My sister gets raped and contracts HIV 6) Life goes on as normal. Some life huh? Thank God these were just beads! But I got the point, it was to show us how easily something like this can affect a family and how it affects everyone, not just the person who contracts the disease. It was interesting to see what happened to other people because I didn't really read through the other possibilities. It also helped put into perspective the kinds of things I could run into while I'm here. We also received our placements and dun dun DUN.. I'm at Baylor Pediatic Clinic!! It was my first choice so I'm really happy. Kate, one of the counseling doc students, will be there with me which I think is awesome because she has actually worked in the field with families so I feel like I can learn a lot from her. I'm anxious to get acquianted and see what they do instead of just hearing about it.

After class we went to lunch there was new entree on board today. One of the girls informed us it was cow's stomach but I made a committment to try everything here (minus anything with tomatoes lol) so I had her put a little on my plate. Huge mistake. I wish I had taken a picture of it just so you could see how gross it looked to begin with. It was smooth on one side and reminded me of what an artery would look like, sliced in half. Then on the other side was this sp

ongy, broccoli looking stuff. Clare, Mandy & I cut off pieces and tried it. At first were like oh this isn't so bad..I mean it doesn't taste amazing but it really just didn't taste like much of anything. That is until you swallow it. It literally tasted the way poop smells. It was awful. NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN. I just gagged typing all this.

We spent the afternoon/evening at the French Music Festival or Fete de la Musique! We all thought it was going to be French music (which we also all thought was weird) but it was actually a wide range of different genres from hip hop to jazz to classical and afro-pop. I enjoyed everything except the heavy metal which actually had really good music and just horribly singing. I hate that stuff where people yell in the microphone and try to sound scary, it hurts my ears. But besides that it was really good. I'll try to add a video of it later but right now it's not loading.It was amazing all the sounds they could make just using their feet, hands, mouth and a whistle! I was quite impressed and it seemed like most everyone else was too. We decided to

just get

dinner at the festival instead of coming back to the cafeteria. I got all of that for 12 Pula or 2 dollars! haha On the other side of the stage there was a store that had all kinds of really cool African souveniers. They had all kinds of stuff from flags to scrapbooks to statues, walking sticks, and awesome pottery. I got myself this little wood container. I figure I'll find something

to put in it! The carvings are elephants! I think it's pretty neat looking though. I also got my nieces gifts for their birthdays and my mom something but of couse I won't disclose that here or she'll know! We heard that Main Mall has a lot of similar stuff and for even cheaper than this place. I got all my stuff for less than $80.00. I can't wait to get more stuff to take back! I honesly want one of the dish sets but I have no idea how I'd get it back with me without breaking it so I probably won't get one. Well now I'm pretty well all caught and of coure I didn't get to bed early like I wanted to. This is becoming problematic. Oh well, it was worth it to get to talk to Andrew for awhile. I miss him...

Bahurutshe and Bull & Bush

Yesterday was the most fun I've had so far! We started off the day at 7:30 of course with a delicious breakfast: fried eggs, toast and bacon.. I made a breakfast sandwich :) Then we headed to our final Setswana lesson of the trip. Le ithutile thata (I have learned a lot!) After that we preceded to Bahurutshe, a cultural village outside of the city. They demonstrated their traditional singing and dancing and also showed us their wedding day rituals. It really is a whole village celebration. It was interesting to hear them talk about how traditionally the bride and groom were cousins but only through brother/sister relationships not through sister/sister. They said that a lot of westerners say that the children will be messed up or have defects if they marry in their family but they felt this was only true if it was one sisters child marrying another sisters child. It would have been interesting to hear a little bit more about why they believed that. I'll be honest, thinking about it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I just can't imagine marrying someone in my own family but I think I understand their reasonings. A main one was the idea of keeping the family's wealth within the family. If a woman married outside of the family then the son-in-law would be paying a dowry to a family outside of his own, if it's his cousin then it's sorta keeps the dowry within the family. Paying 8 cows to your aunt and uncle still gives you access to them. The reality is these kinds of traditions still go on in royal families throughout the world and yet because of their wealth we often ignore the incest component. They are less common than before and I feel that this is probably due to the fact that many cultures have eliminated a dowry component so there's not as much worry about where the money is but also disapproval by some larger groups seems to have made an impact in some areas. I think my real problem is less with the within the family thing and more to do with the age at which this tends to occur. I guess this is just one of those places you have to agree to disagree.

They made us a delicious lunch. I have been pleasantly impressed with the food. The only problem is while it may taste great, it doesn't always agree with my stomach which is nothing new since I'm lactose intolerant and love cheese, afredo sauce, and ice cream. But still having my stomach hurt a couple times a day is getting old. The one thing that does surprise me though is they always serve us pop or canned juice that's really sweet. There food seems moderately healthy so I would think they would drink a lot of water but we've only been offered water one time and of course we all took it. I think I'm really dehydrated so I've been feeling funny at times. I sure the amount of coffee I'm drinking isn't helping the cause but I only had one cup today because of the no water thing. Can't chance it when I don't know when I'll be able to flush again lol Thankfully the cultural village had water so I jumped at the opportunity to utilize it. Apparently you can stay their overnight. We went in the huts which were really nice, small but cozy. It would be the perfect getaway for a night or two! They also gave us clay and had us making something for them to keep in memory of us. I'm not so creative so I just made a sun.One of the ladies made a pig and handed it to me..I kind of wish I could have kept it but I don't think I was suppose to. It was really cool to see their traditions and even have opportunities to be participate in them. At first I was thinking I should have volunteered to play the role of the bride but once she had to take cow poop and spread it on the ground, I was glad I didn't! (The second picture in this blog is of the women showing her how it's done). I was advised by Dr. Bates to talk about the things I didn't like so much... for instance the men first rule and women do all the work. I prefer to feel as though chivalry never died and ladies go first haha no really I don't care who's first..I'd rather all go together. Then we were sweeping while the boys played games! I have seen documentaries in the past and it showed the men just kind of sitting around the village while the women cook all day and clean and hunt. It just seemed kind of ridiculous that they didn't help at all! It seems like so much more would get done and a women wouldn't have to spend her whole day slaving over every tasks but apparently that's not how they see it.

We still didn't have hot water when we got home and my hair was absolutely disgusting so I decided to wash my hair in the sink. It was awkward and the water was freezing. I compared it to dipping my hair into the Arctic Ocean. Of course about 4 hours later all the water was back but its whatever. Let's just hope there isn't a next outage!

It was our first night venturing out in Gaborone! Almost the whole group headed to a popular bar: Bull & Bush. There were a lot of tourist & locals so it was a nice mix of people. We met a lot of really nice people there including two marines. I was asking them quite a few questions since that's what Andrew plans to do next year. They actually made me feel a lot better than someone I had talked to a few weeks before. I guess each person is different but it's comforting to talk to people who are actually a part of it and see that while they have seen some scary stuff they aren't necessarily scared for life or anything. There's no doubt in my mind that some of the stuff they see will never leave their memory but all you can hope for is that they develop health coping skills and seek counseling if necessary. (Obviously I would say that since it's my field lol) It was a really fun night though! We were all dancing and just letting loose after a long week. I'm not gonna lie, I took one too many poker face pictures haha We also met up with some of the other exchange students staying at UB from UPenn, Kansas, Finland, Germany, etc. I had come to expect being hit on hardcore as we warned that the men often come on strong here because if they don't they are afraid you won't be interested but we didn't really have that problem at all. Maybe some of that had to do with being at a bar that had a lot of tourist or the fact that we were in a large group but whatever the cause I was happy not to be bothered too much! The guys we did meet were extremely polite and they had MANNERS! (Of course Andrew has manners as well, but I'm referring to how strangers in US with the ones in Botswana) Yes apparently on this part of the world they have no died yet! No but seriously, everyone- girls and guys alike, that we have met so far has been really nice. At the end of the night we went to Bimbos..yes it is really called that. It's pretty much like a Sonic so we all endulged in drunk food in Botswana and it was delicious!! Here are some pictures to document our fun times lol

with some new friends..

Manders & Corky :)

P-p-p-p-oker Face!

Clearly having way too much fun!