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