My last week in Mochudi passed excellently. I tried some more to teach the kids at BBM some things, such as singing "heads, shoulders, knees, and toes" (they mostly just stared at me funny). Unfortunately Mama came down with a throat infection during my last few days there, but my sister Rafilwe came to take her to the hospital and got her antibiotics. My last night at the Mantswe house was wonderful; my oldest sister Sheila came to visit with her husband and 2 kids, and then Rafilwe came with her son and brought my sister Lemo, who works in Lobatse and wasn't expecting to come home til Friday (when I left). It was like a big family reunion. My mom got out of bed and made herself up for the occasion, and we spent like an hour taking family pictures. Only McPherson, who was busy studying at UB, couldn't come home, but he and I have been talking about him coming to visit in Seattle when I go home in June! So exciting, I'd get to return the hosting favor.
On Friday I said goodbye to Mama and my favorite 1-year old Palesa (who I love regardless of whether she scribbled all over my essays) and caught the bus to Gabs. We had one lovely night in a hotel, and then the next day were rushed out to our new families in Tlokweng (a village right down the road from Riverwalk mall, kind of like a suburb). My new host parents are Mma and Rra Modumedise, and they're my youngest yet (around 40). I have an 18-year old sister Yolanda, a 14-year old brother Papi (who's a huge MJ fan and was dancing to This Is It the night I arrived), and our live-in helper girl nicknamed "Zee". It's a nice enough house but really tiny; my siblings and Zee sleep in one room, though when I cam Yolanda and Zee volunteered to sleep in the living room. I've enjoyed my time so far with the new fam, but unfortunately I only get 2 weeks with them; while the others in the group are staying in Gabs for their independent study, I'm heading on the 10th to Maun (I think). My actual internship hasn't been arranged yet, which goes to show the level of organization in the program and Bots in general, but I do know I'll be heading north, leaving my Americans behind.
In the meantime, we have an awesome schedule for these two weeks. Each morning we go on field trips to have lectures around Gabs; today we visited Parliament, and tomorrow is the meat-packing plant (a big part of Bots' economy). We have all the afternoons free, so we've been spending a lot of time eating well at the malls in Gabs, Riverwalk and Game City. Monday we went to see Alice and Wonderland, which was pretty entertaining. (Johnny Depp has an excellent moment near the end, which you'll know if you've seen it. Let's just say his head spins around.) I'm really enjoying all this delicious food that hasn't been a part of my life for 2+ months; I'm also excited to start work in Maun, as sad as it'll be to leave everyone. Until then, though, I've got the good life!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Lunch at the Chief's
Last Saturday, I was ushered out of the house by Mama nearly as soon as I'd woken up. My older sister Rafilwe had come in from Gabs, and together with my brother McPherson we were going to a kgotla meeting (a bit like town hall, I guess, but more cultural to the village). I was pretty confused to see my brother put on an animal skin cape as we were piling in the car to leave, and even more surprised when we got to the kgotla and saw all the men wearing antelope-type skins. It turns out the skins are a symbol of tribal initiation, an old practice that was banned with independence but has now been resurrected by the Bakgatla tribe here in Mochudi. There are traditional "schools" for the men and women (though attendance is now voluntary): in the men's, they march out 80km into the bush, bringing nothing but a blanket and maybe some T-shirts, and camp with a group of about 2,000 for 8 weeks, hunting and learning about tribal culture. McPherson told me he'd done it last winter. Pretty intense!
The kgotla meeting began when the kgosi (chief) pulled up in his H3 Hummer, and took his official seat draped with a leopard skin. It lasted 3 hours and was all in Setswana, and so all unintelligible to me, but there was a traumatizing moment when the MC asked me to stand in front of all the hundreds of people there and formally welcomed me to Mochudi, and invited me to a luncheon afterwards at the chief's house. News photographers rushed over to take my picture, and this morning my friend's mom said she'd seen me in one of the papers. (Guess I'm a minor celebrity here now...?) As it turns out, the meeting had been called to introduce a new squad of crime-fighting civilians on horseback, and to present the chief with a gift of cattle.
Lunch at the chief's was pretty interesting - the food was good, salads and tea sandwiches - and though I didn't actually meet the chief, I talked to the MC guy and found out he'd been to Seattle before through Boeing. Small world. Other than that I just stuck close to Mama and ate my food as inconspicuously as possible (pretty difficult for the only white person at a giant event).
This work week has been hot and pretty busy; the organization has been hosting a workshop for 50+ people, so we've had a lot of cooking and cleaning and chores to do. It's gotten pretty frustrating at times, because the staff all speak to us in rapid Setswana and somehow expect us to understand (we obviously don't 90 percent of the time). We have a Setswana lesson tomorrow, though, so no work; afterwards we're thinking of checking out the local museum.
Got one more week in Mochudi, and then it's off to Gabs, so I'll keep you all posted! Also Happy St. Patty's yesterday. As one could guess, it's not actually a holiday here.
The kgotla meeting began when the kgosi (chief) pulled up in his H3 Hummer, and took his official seat draped with a leopard skin. It lasted 3 hours and was all in Setswana, and so all unintelligible to me, but there was a traumatizing moment when the MC asked me to stand in front of all the hundreds of people there and formally welcomed me to Mochudi, and invited me to a luncheon afterwards at the chief's house. News photographers rushed over to take my picture, and this morning my friend's mom said she'd seen me in one of the papers. (Guess I'm a minor celebrity here now...?) As it turns out, the meeting had been called to introduce a new squad of crime-fighting civilians on horseback, and to present the chief with a gift of cattle.
Lunch at the chief's was pretty interesting - the food was good, salads and tea sandwiches - and though I didn't actually meet the chief, I talked to the MC guy and found out he'd been to Seattle before through Boeing. Small world. Other than that I just stuck close to Mama and ate my food as inconspicuously as possible (pretty difficult for the only white person at a giant event).
This work week has been hot and pretty busy; the organization has been hosting a workshop for 50+ people, so we've had a lot of cooking and cleaning and chores to do. It's gotten pretty frustrating at times, because the staff all speak to us in rapid Setswana and somehow expect us to understand (we obviously don't 90 percent of the time). We have a Setswana lesson tomorrow, though, so no work; afterwards we're thinking of checking out the local museum.
Got one more week in Mochudi, and then it's off to Gabs, so I'll keep you all posted! Also Happy St. Patty's yesterday. As one could guess, it's not actually a holiday here.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Day Camp in the Big Motse
It's been one week now since we moved to Mochudi, and I'm getting used to life in a big village (40,000 people big, to be exact). Living here is so much different than in Manyana - there is more than one paved roads, sometimes even with traffic; I have to take a khombi (Botswana public transportation, vans that drive on bus routes) to get places instead of walking everywhere; but the best part is that there are actual grocery stores here. The range of my diet has improved dramatically since getting here; I even bought Rice Krispies!
Before coming to Mochudi I was pretty nervous about getting a new host family. I was still really attached to the Mangopes - my brother Labo even visited us at our lodge in Gabs before we left for Mochudi. But my new family here is excellent, and super easy to live with. My host mom is Colleen Mantswe, a typical matriarch type in her 60s who likes to mother me and shows off my Setswana skills to everyone we meet. I have two grown and married sisters, both of whom live in Gabs. We visited them over the weekend; both have really nice houses, and one took me to her work, at the library where journalists do research for the national newspaper. I also have a 23-year old sister, Lemo (once again, my Setswana name is oh so perfect for my family), who works in Lobatse but comes home on weekends. She has an almost-2 year old daughter who lives with my mom at home, Palesa. Palesa is super cute, and I really enjoy having a baby around, even though her favorite activity is to steal pens and draw on any and everything. She can even say "Lebo" now, and runs to see me when I come home! Finally, I have a 19-year old brother, McPherson, who goes to university but comes home every night. He's an awesome guy, and we cook together most nights. I also showed him my iPod, and he proceeded to watch all the videos I have on it that I'd made in high school and college, and then raved to me how they should be on TV! Basically I love my family here.
During the day I'm not going to school anymore, except for Setswana on Wednesday afternoons. Instead we're all doing internships: I'm working at Bakgatla Bolokang Matshelo, an organization that cares for people with HIV/AIDS, along with Naledi (Breanna, from Scripps) and Amogelang (Andrea, from Colby). Every day young kids (3-5) and old people come to the center and basically just hang out or play all day. Our job is basically just to be with the kids; we've kind of started a mini-day camp for a couple hours a day where we try to teach them a little English (numbers, animals, etc) with the help of a Motswana girl who also started volunteering. It's pretty challenging, since they only speak Setswana; I actually managed to explain duck-duck-goose with marginal success the other day, but on tag I quickly gave up. Since we're only doing that stuff for a couple hours a day we generally just sit around and talk to each other the rest of the time, which is questionable internship behavior, but as far as I can tell there's really nothing else to do. Oh well... it is a Botswana internship, and I've come to find they play by different rules here.
I'm excited for this weekend, since I should get to hang out with McPherson and see more of Mochudi. We have two more weeks here in our internships, and then we're off to Gabs for another short homestay. In a word, things here are monate (Setswana for good/great/nice/excellent/etc) despite the heat, which today is up to 35 degrees C. Several people in our group think that "sauna" was actually derived from "Botswana," and they do have a point... all I'm saying is at least we have fans at home now.
Before coming to Mochudi I was pretty nervous about getting a new host family. I was still really attached to the Mangopes - my brother Labo even visited us at our lodge in Gabs before we left for Mochudi. But my new family here is excellent, and super easy to live with. My host mom is Colleen Mantswe, a typical matriarch type in her 60s who likes to mother me and shows off my Setswana skills to everyone we meet. I have two grown and married sisters, both of whom live in Gabs. We visited them over the weekend; both have really nice houses, and one took me to her work, at the library where journalists do research for the national newspaper. I also have a 23-year old sister, Lemo (once again, my Setswana name is oh so perfect for my family), who works in Lobatse but comes home on weekends. She has an almost-2 year old daughter who lives with my mom at home, Palesa. Palesa is super cute, and I really enjoy having a baby around, even though her favorite activity is to steal pens and draw on any and everything. She can even say "Lebo" now, and runs to see me when I come home! Finally, I have a 19-year old brother, McPherson, who goes to university but comes home every night. He's an awesome guy, and we cook together most nights. I also showed him my iPod, and he proceeded to watch all the videos I have on it that I'd made in high school and college, and then raved to me how they should be on TV! Basically I love my family here.
During the day I'm not going to school anymore, except for Setswana on Wednesday afternoons. Instead we're all doing internships: I'm working at Bakgatla Bolokang Matshelo, an organization that cares for people with HIV/AIDS, along with Naledi (Breanna, from Scripps) and Amogelang (Andrea, from Colby). Every day young kids (3-5) and old people come to the center and basically just hang out or play all day. Our job is basically just to be with the kids; we've kind of started a mini-day camp for a couple hours a day where we try to teach them a little English (numbers, animals, etc) with the help of a Motswana girl who also started volunteering. It's pretty challenging, since they only speak Setswana; I actually managed to explain duck-duck-goose with marginal success the other day, but on tag I quickly gave up. Since we're only doing that stuff for a couple hours a day we generally just sit around and talk to each other the rest of the time, which is questionable internship behavior, but as far as I can tell there's really nothing else to do. Oh well... it is a Botswana internship, and I've come to find they play by different rules here.
I'm excited for this weekend, since I should get to hang out with McPherson and see more of Mochudi. We have two more weeks here in our internships, and then we're off to Gabs for another short homestay. In a word, things here are monate (Setswana for good/great/nice/excellent/etc) despite the heat, which today is up to 35 degrees C. Several people in our group think that "sauna" was actually derived from "Botswana," and they do have a point... all I'm saying is at least we have fans at home now.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The best day of my life...
...was last Thursday, the day we drove into Chobe National Park. We'd made the 12-hour drive from Gabs to Kasane (right on the Zimbabwe border) the day before, and now we were going into the park on a safari truck to camp for 2 nights. Even before we got to the park entrance we saw several elephants browsing off the side of the road. It felt like we had entered Jurassic Park; the elephants may as well have been dinosaurs for how amazed we were to see them. As we drove through the park along the Chobe River, though, elephants became commonplace: there are some 60,000 in the park, the highest concentration in the world, and we saw multiple herds bathing and drinking at the river. Giraffes, hippos, antelope, and baboons were also all around us. I had my head stuck out the side of the covered pickup the entire time, taking more pictures than I know what to do with and marveling that I was now doing exactly what I'd wanted to do for 21 years.
After 3 hours we arrived at our campsite, right on the Chobe River. This was camping as I'd never experienced it before: our tents had been already set up and filled with mattresses and blankets; there was a dining table with tablecloth all set for teatime; and the campsite staff were busy cooking us dinner. Luxury in the middle of the wilderness - now that's the life. While we ate at camp a hippo came out of the river just beyond our campsite; the next day I saw a herd of elephants come to bathe at the same spot. Really, the best camping ever.
For our full day in Chobe, we had two game drives, morning and afternoon. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy off and on so there weren't as many animals as there might have been, but now we were on a mission. Or should I say, a lion hunt. We followed tracks in the sand unsuccessfully during our first drive, but then in the afternoon found a lioness just as she ran under a bush to lie down. The real kicker, though, came on our morning drive out of the park the next day, when we found a male lion laying in the grass! He lifted his head to look at us for a minute, and I got some nice pics. One of the trip highlights for sure.
That afternoon we took a river cruise down the Chobe, riding up next to hippo pods and crocs. The next day we crossed into Zimbabwe to visit Victoria Falls, which is actually a bunch of connected giant waterfalls that you walk around a paved pathway to see. It was sooo beautiful. Some of the falls even created their own rainstorms, so we got thoroughly drenched. Pretty nice when you're in what feels like a tropical jungle.
On Monday we came back to Gabs for another orientation before we go to stay in Mochudi tomorrow. Mochudi is a village of about 40,000, and we'll each be working full-time with a social organization for the three weeks we're there. I'll be working with an HIV/AIDS care group, which seems very interesting but also makes me nervous - I have no experience that could prepare me for working with terminally ill patients every day. We start on Monday.
I also just got the name of my next host family. I have a mom (no dad), grown siblings (the youngest is 20, and studies at the U of Botswana), and a one-year old granddaughter. Should be interesting.... it's so weird though to think about living with another family when I still miss my Manyana fam! But my adventure continues. Once I get settled into Mochudi I'll hopefully be able to update on life in the Big Motse! Sala sentle for now.
After 3 hours we arrived at our campsite, right on the Chobe River. This was camping as I'd never experienced it before: our tents had been already set up and filled with mattresses and blankets; there was a dining table with tablecloth all set for teatime; and the campsite staff were busy cooking us dinner. Luxury in the middle of the wilderness - now that's the life. While we ate at camp a hippo came out of the river just beyond our campsite; the next day I saw a herd of elephants come to bathe at the same spot. Really, the best camping ever.
For our full day in Chobe, we had two game drives, morning and afternoon. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy off and on so there weren't as many animals as there might have been, but now we were on a mission. Or should I say, a lion hunt. We followed tracks in the sand unsuccessfully during our first drive, but then in the afternoon found a lioness just as she ran under a bush to lie down. The real kicker, though, came on our morning drive out of the park the next day, when we found a male lion laying in the grass! He lifted his head to look at us for a minute, and I got some nice pics. One of the trip highlights for sure.
That afternoon we took a river cruise down the Chobe, riding up next to hippo pods and crocs. The next day we crossed into Zimbabwe to visit Victoria Falls, which is actually a bunch of connected giant waterfalls that you walk around a paved pathway to see. It was sooo beautiful. Some of the falls even created their own rainstorms, so we got thoroughly drenched. Pretty nice when you're in what feels like a tropical jungle.
On Monday we came back to Gabs for another orientation before we go to stay in Mochudi tomorrow. Mochudi is a village of about 40,000, and we'll each be working full-time with a social organization for the three weeks we're there. I'll be working with an HIV/AIDS care group, which seems very interesting but also makes me nervous - I have no experience that could prepare me for working with terminally ill patients every day. We start on Monday.
I also just got the name of my next host family. I have a mom (no dad), grown siblings (the youngest is 20, and studies at the U of Botswana), and a one-year old granddaughter. Should be interesting.... it's so weird though to think about living with another family when I still miss my Manyana fam! But my adventure continues. Once I get settled into Mochudi I'll hopefully be able to update on life in the Big Motse! Sala sentle for now.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Goodbye Porridge, Hello Pizza and Ice Cream
Whoa... today has been such a rush. At 9 this morning we caught the public bus from Manyana, the village that had become my home for the past month, to Gaborone, the capital city, which has malls, pizza, real bathrooms, and other white people. I never would have thought I would gawk at every "lekgoa" (as they're known in Setswana) passing by, but I am. We counted, and outside our group we'd seen 5 white people during the last month.
Despite how utterly euporic it was for us to order three pizzas, garlic bread, and chocolate ice cream here at Gaborone's Riverwalk mall, it was pretty sad to pack up and say goodbye to all my friends and family from Manyana. Last Friday we had our going away party at the school, and all our parents and some siblings came, and it was so great to see everyone together! We also got in touch with a traditional dance group from the village, and they performed in full costume at our party. We also did a group skit (which involved me playing a drunk donkey cart driver and running over a bunch of kids) and read thank-you speeches in Setswana to our parents, which was really nice even though I still couldn't understand too much of the others' speeches.
This weekend was a rush to finish all the various assignments we had for school, but that all got done yesterday - a nice relief. I spent my last night at the Mangope house talking with Labo and playing a couple games of chess together (both of which were stalemates, neither of us are very good). I'm hoping to be able to visit my family there again in April, when we spend two weeks in Gabs; there's a bus that goes straight to the Manyana bus stop down the road from house, and there's really no question I need to see Mme and Rre and Labo again before I leave for good.
We've got the day today to shop and eat in Gabs, and tomorrow we have a 3am wake-up call for the 12+ hour bus ride to Kasane, where we'll see elephants and lions and who knows what else on our 5 days of safari. And we're going to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls!!! Unbelievably excited for the next week, dreams comin' true right here and now. And Manyana, with its chickens and maize meal and delicious fried dough balls and all its wonderful people, will always have a special place.
Despite how utterly euporic it was for us to order three pizzas, garlic bread, and chocolate ice cream here at Gaborone's Riverwalk mall, it was pretty sad to pack up and say goodbye to all my friends and family from Manyana. Last Friday we had our going away party at the school, and all our parents and some siblings came, and it was so great to see everyone together! We also got in touch with a traditional dance group from the village, and they performed in full costume at our party. We also did a group skit (which involved me playing a drunk donkey cart driver and running over a bunch of kids) and read thank-you speeches in Setswana to our parents, which was really nice even though I still couldn't understand too much of the others' speeches.
This weekend was a rush to finish all the various assignments we had for school, but that all got done yesterday - a nice relief. I spent my last night at the Mangope house talking with Labo and playing a couple games of chess together (both of which were stalemates, neither of us are very good). I'm hoping to be able to visit my family there again in April, when we spend two weeks in Gabs; there's a bus that goes straight to the Manyana bus stop down the road from house, and there's really no question I need to see Mme and Rre and Labo again before I leave for good.
We've got the day today to shop and eat in Gabs, and tomorrow we have a 3am wake-up call for the 12+ hour bus ride to Kasane, where we'll see elephants and lions and who knows what else on our 5 days of safari. And we're going to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls!!! Unbelievably excited for the next week, dreams comin' true right here and now. And Manyana, with its chickens and maize meal and delicious fried dough balls and all its wonderful people, will always have a special place.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Dumela from Botswana!!!
I am currently at Sonia's house - the Peace Corps volunteer here I just met - who owns the only Macbook for I don't know how many miles around. I am also eating the first CHEESE in almost a month, it is heavenly, I really can't believe what is going on right now.
OK, let me back up a bit. The 8 of us on the program (4 Pitzer, 1 Scripps, 2 Colby, and me) are staying in Manyana, a village of 3500 south of Gaborone. We've been here for 3 weeks now, living in homestays and walking to Setswana lessons (in a hut at the horticulture field) every morning. When we arrived here and met our host mothers, we all got Setswana names: I am now Lebo Mangope. My host family is really great - I have an older brother who works in Gabs with diamonds, and a 19-year old brother, Labo, who is outgoing and fun and also does most all of the housework around my house. My house is here is actually unusually nice - I'm the only one of the 8 of us who has running water and a toilet indoors. Making progress in Setswana - I can do simple sentences, past, present, and future tenses, and I can usually get my point across with the help of a little English. Everyone in my family except my dad speaks a fair amount of English, though, so the majority of communication is still on that familiar turf.
I live next door to Melissa, from Pitzer, who lives with my cousins, and I do the 20-minute walk to school with her every morning. The scenery here is beautiful and green; a tiny river runs through the village, and mountains/hills border the village. Last week we visited the Manyana Rock Paintings, made by the San some 2000 years ago, and the Livingstone Tree, which has giant branches in every direction and was a lot of fun to climb. A couple days ago (the day after my 21st birthday) we got the opportunity to play with cow dung, using it to pave the patio of the house of one of our school cooks; afterwards one of our school staff delivered me a belated b-day cake! The food here is rather unvaried, and generally consists of a giant heap of starch (rice, pasta, or paleche, made from maize meal) with a couple bites of meat. Thus the cheese and ice cream cravings, and the utter bliss I'm experiencing right now. I've also been to masimo (the lands / cow post) with my family a couple times, so I've gotten to try cow herding and weeding the maize crop.
We've got one more week here in Manyana, during which time we have a crap load of written assignments to finish for school. Next week we're going to Gabs for a night, then taking the 12-hr trip to Kasane to go on SAFARI! Can't wait. Sorry I can't write more, but hopefully I'll find an internet cafe in Gabs or Mochudi, where our next homestay starts in March. I am loving Botswana, though, the people here are so friendly (and most of them know me now by my family's name), and it's definitely as far as possible as I could be, physically and mentally, from Pomona. More coming soon-ish, hopefully with news of animals other than chickens, donkeys, cows, and goats! Go siame, and sala sentle! (In Setswana, stay well.)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
I'm leavin' on a jet plane...
...and I'll be back June 12. Three months after I found out I was going to Africa this semester, it's now my last night in Seattle. It's only hit me in the last few days that I'm leaving home to go to the other side of the world; thinking it is one thing, feeling it is completely different. Also crazy to think that after 20 years of reading African animal books, collecting stuffed African animals, sketching African animals, decorating my room to be "African," and writing about African wildlife conservation, I am going to Africa TOMORROW. See? Dreams can come true.
Actually, though, I hardly have any idea what living in Africa will be like. I know that I'll be living in three month-long homestays, starting in a rural village, then moving to a small town, and finally in Gaborone (the capital, pronounced ha-buh-ROH-nay, goes by "Gabs" for short). During the last month of the program I'll be doing an independent research project, hopefully having something to do with wildlife conservation. Then, after my program in Botswana ends at the end of May, I'll be traveling solo through South Africa and Namibia for 2 weeks before flying home.
That's my semester in a nutshell, I guess. Whereas I'd usually be lugging two 50-pound suitcases back to school right about now, I've just about finished packing a small suitcase, duffel bag, and backpack. I won't really know whether I've overpacked at all til I see what everyone else on the program has brought, but I do know it's the lightest I've ever packed for 5 months.
We're getting a bright and early start tomorrow around 5 am. I've got a 7:30 flight to DC, and from there (after a 2-hr. layover) I have an 18-hr. flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. I get in there after 6 pm Monday, which I just realized is early morning over here - there's a 10-hr. time difference. I've booked a room at the Green Palms Guest House for Monday night, so if all goes according to plan they will send someone to pick me up at the airport (holding a sign with my name, which for some reason I think is hilarious. Maybe because it seems like that one Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George lie their way into a limo...). Then, back to the airport Tuesday morning for the hour-long flight to Gabs!
Given that I'll be starting the program out living in a rural village, it's unlikely that I'll be able to update my wonderful blog much in the next several weeks. I believe there's an orientation in Gabs before the home stay, so if I can I'll post my first impressions of Africa, but either way rest assured I'll update it when I can! Alright, I'm going to go run around the house some more, collecting things to pack last-minute. Signing out from Seattle, on my way to Africa!!!
Actually, though, I hardly have any idea what living in Africa will be like. I know that I'll be living in three month-long homestays, starting in a rural village, then moving to a small town, and finally in Gaborone (the capital, pronounced ha-buh-ROH-nay, goes by "Gabs" for short). During the last month of the program I'll be doing an independent research project, hopefully having something to do with wildlife conservation. Then, after my program in Botswana ends at the end of May, I'll be traveling solo through South Africa and Namibia for 2 weeks before flying home.
That's my semester in a nutshell, I guess. Whereas I'd usually be lugging two 50-pound suitcases back to school right about now, I've just about finished packing a small suitcase, duffel bag, and backpack. I won't really know whether I've overpacked at all til I see what everyone else on the program has brought, but I do know it's the lightest I've ever packed for 5 months.
We're getting a bright and early start tomorrow around 5 am. I've got a 7:30 flight to DC, and from there (after a 2-hr. layover) I have an 18-hr. flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. I get in there after 6 pm Monday, which I just realized is early morning over here - there's a 10-hr. time difference. I've booked a room at the Green Palms Guest House for Monday night, so if all goes according to plan they will send someone to pick me up at the airport (holding a sign with my name, which for some reason I think is hilarious. Maybe because it seems like that one Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George lie their way into a limo...). Then, back to the airport Tuesday morning for the hour-long flight to Gabs!
Given that I'll be starting the program out living in a rural village, it's unlikely that I'll be able to update my wonderful blog much in the next several weeks. I believe there's an orientation in Gabs before the home stay, so if I can I'll post my first impressions of Africa, but either way rest assured I'll update it when I can! Alright, I'm going to go run around the house some more, collecting things to pack last-minute. Signing out from Seattle, on my way to Africa!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)