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)