We made it safely to Botswana, and I'm beginning to recover from jet
lag. We left Philly at 3am Wed. morning and arrived in Botswana around noon on Thursday. We spent Thursday night in a lodge in Gaborone getting lots of information from PC staff and current volunteers, and then I crashed-
not sleeping for almost 3 days made me more tired than I've been since at least college.
Yesterday we rode a bus to Kanye where we live for training. After some more information sessions we met our host families. My host mom has 4 grown children that are all here for the weekend. I haven't figured out if they live here perminently. The daughter lives in Gaborone and comes home on the weekends, and has an adorable 10-month old baby. The house is nice with electricity and plumbing, but currently no running water. We can flush the toilet with buckets of water, and they have a separate barrel of water for drinking, as opposed to washing and flushing toilets. Tonight I'll figure out how to take a bucket bath- I'll let you know how that goes*. I have my own room that locks- a PC requirement, which is nice and I can sleep pretty well. I don't think I'll ever sleep through the roosters though. I swear this morning it sounded like one was IN the kitchen.
We had some more training this morning and then a free afternoon, so my friend Sarah and I took a cab to the mall (which is pretty close) to buy a few things and use the internet cafe. She got lost lost walking home from the training center, and I got lost walking out to the highway, but we eventually found each other and got a cab.
For now, I think I'll post here about once a week, unless I find some other internet. I have a phone, but I'm not sure how to call long distance yet without it costing more than a dollar a minute (yikes). Facebook also loads really weird in this cafe, so I might miss something if you post it on my wall. E-mail is your best bet if you really need to reach me.
The address I have up on the blog will reach me, and I haven't gotten a better one yet, so mail things to the Gaborone address if you are so inclined.
The weather here is gorgeous, its like early-ish spring. Very cool at night and warm during the day. I know it will get very hot soon, so I'm enjoying it while I can!
So far Botswana is great, both the people and the country. I start serious language training on Tuesday, and will then hopefully know more than 3 words in Setswana. My Botswana name is Lesayho, which means luck.
Go siame! (goodbye!)
*I promise not to give you too much information on bathing and sanitation here :P
The adventures and day-to-day life of a Hokie that enjoys traveling, nature, people, and public health.
For phone calls--there is Nobel.com for USA to out of country. I need to ask Ted what we used but there was another company we used to make calls to the US.
ReplyDelete