Hakuna Matata

Been a full week since I've written here, and leaving tomorrow for another week of adventures, so thought I should check in!

All last week we were at Tlamelo and in the classroom. Another good week with the kids, I love love love talking with the older kids (I say kids, but most of them are around my age, even some older!) and joking with them and getting to know all of them better. The little ones are still amazing too, and holding and loving them is going well as always. On Thursday I was talking to my good friend Bareng (I've written about her before, she's 12 and comes to Tlamelo for lunch every day) and her friend Laralho, and Danielle and I decided it'd be fun for them to come visit us at UB for dinner and a movie on Saturday evening. They wanted to come see UB, and we wanted to be able to see these girls outside of just Tlamelo every day, so it was a great plan. I loved being able to have something new to do, and it was definitely a good change of pace to have those plans with the girls. Danielle and I were talking last week about how it can be kind of easy to fall into a routine here, seeing the same kids every day, and almost taking it for granted, and we just talked about how that is NOT how we want our last few weeks here to be, and this was just the perfect plan for fixing that.

Friday was by far my most homesick day here so far. I haven't dealt with homesickness at all this trip so far, which has just been a huge blessing and one of those things that can only be explained by being completely provided for by Him. Friday hit though, and all I wanted to do was be home, going to the parade, watching my dad and Sam and Joelo destroy things in the back yard, and go to my grandparents for a perfect night. The girls were wonderful with me though here, and we went out to dinner at the most American restaurant we could find, and it turned out fine. And Charlie shot off some fireworks for me via the phone, so that was a good taste of the day at least! When the 5th hit Saturday morning, I was extremely glad to have made it through my very very favorite day of the entire day that wasn't spent in the right country.

Saturday Leslie and Meeka and I headed out to Oodi to pick up the tapestries we had ordered earlier this summer from the Oodi Weavers- the community of women who weave these incredible works, it's all free trade stuff, it's awesome stuff! We all were very pleased with the final result, mine is a really gorgeous sky with lots of colors, and then some elephants on the savannah...I haven't seen any elephants here yet, but hopefully this will bring me good luck for spotting some soon!

Saturday afternoon we had been invited to the American Embassy Independence Day celebration, and we figured we had to attend. It was held at this beautiful outdoor courtyard, and there were a ton more people there than we had thought would be. A lot of families and children, which really got me thinking about how these families are living and making Botswana their home, maybe I could do it too? : ) There was a lot of red, white and blue at this party, and hot dogs and hamburgers...it was wonderful. I had Les take about a billion pictures of me with the red, white and blue balloons because I missed the traditional 4th pictures, so at least I'll have some record that I was in fact alive for July 4th, 2008.

We ran to the nearest combi stop after the party and I headed right back to UB to pick up Danielle to run out the door again to pick up our girls. They were waiting at the combi stop in Old Naledi for us when we arrived, so we got them and brought them back to our flat. The evening was wonderful, so so great, and the experience was so great. I loved being able to serve these girls in my home, and make them feel special and worthy for an evening...it was amazing. We served them our speciality (frozen fish cooked, rice, and veggies!), and they watched Lion King during dinner. They loved the movie I think, and especially loved the Hakuna Matata song, because they understood, it was really great. Afterwards I showed them pictures of my family and friends on my computer, and then all of the sudden these girls started to put on a show for D and I. They have incredible little voices that are so sweet and perfect and they had no shame singing to us in my small little room, it was so cool. Bareng started singing all by herself a song that had some incredible words to it, talking about Africa's healing time is now and realizing that God is in control of their future...it was so sweet. I haven't figured out how to post videos on here yet, but as soon as I do, those will be on here. We topped the night off with a taxi ride back to Old Naledi where we dropped the girls off, when the taxi driver proceeded to ask us "Where did you get them?" I don't think he understood why they were with us and we were just dropping them off, but the comment was pretty funny.

Sunday morning was church at Old Naledi again, and then to Riverwalk for lunch and a little shopping. Lazy Sunday afternoon again, which was great, and then back to school today. Later this afternoon we were all just relaxing in our rooms, and Danielle comes in to tell me that Meeka just saw Bareng and her friend outside of our flat through the windows. We didn't really understand, and then all of the sudden there was a knock at the door and the girls were at our front door! We had NO clue they were coming, and I felt horrible because we didn't really have anything to give them tonite...but turns out they walked the ENTIRE way from Old Naledi to UB (probably about an hour and a half walk) and somehow navigated through the UB campus to find our flat... it was such a surprise to us. We gave them some water and I let them listen to some music on my computer, but it was about 2 hours before the sun would go down, and D and I decided the best bet would be to let them know we didn't want them out after dark. They understood, and they were good sports about it all, but I think tomorrow we're going to have to tell them that we WILL have them over again sometime for dinner, but we'll have to figure out a set time for all of that because I don't want them to walk all that way again.

Tomorrow Leslie, Marinda and I are headed off to Zambia, which we are extrrrrremely excited about. We have to go early tomorrow to buy our bus tickets, and then we'll spend most of the day packing and getting our stuff ready. It's an overnight bus that leaves tomorrow around 8p, and we're not exactly sure when we'll arrive in Livingstone, but probably sometime Tuesday afternoon. We're staying at this really awesome backpackers, Jollyboys, and it's fully booked right now so there should be a ton of cool people to meet and hang out with. While we're there, we're doing a day safari in Chobe National Park, which is famous for it's elephants and other big game, so as always I am VERY excited for that. AND, we're in a safari truck this time, no canoe on the water, so hippos, HERE I COME! We're also of course seeing Victoria Falls too, and we have two full days to sightsee around that. Leslie and maybe Marinda are planning on bungee jumping over the falls, and I will be the best cheerleader ever for that...but not a participant I don't think. I would LOVE to be able to do it, but I'm pretty sure I could not get off of that platform without a few anxiety attacks. So, I will have MUCH to update on when we return next Monday at some point...stay tuned! Keep us in your prayers and thoughts...I miss everyone so much!!