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!!

Evading Hippos

Just returned from an amazing "vacation" traveling weekend in Maun, Botswana at the Okavango Delta and the surrounding area...I think it may be easiest to do a day-by-day breakdown of this one! It's probably going to be pretty lengthy...but you can read one day at a time and not all at once if it's too much!

Wednesday: During the day, we ran errands to prepare for our trip, including an adventure-filled trek to find where we could get our visas renewed since they only gave us 30 days coming in. Finally half of us (we got separated because of taxi issues) ended up at the right place, a literal hole in the wall, where you pay somebody outside 2 pula to write a letter on a piece of notebook paper for you explaining why you hope the Botswana visa people will renew your visa. VERY strange. Got my letter, went inside, handed it to the lady, who proceeded to look at me and half-laugh and then ask me why I was there because I had 90 days on my visa. I thought that I got that originally, but the writing was hard to read on my passport and every single other person in our group got 30 days so I just assumed...but the adventure was well worth it all. After this fiasco, Danielle and I set off for one of the malls to pick up a few last minute things, eat some lunch, and then headed back home to pack and shower. Around 8pm we headed to the train station, where we had pre-booked our sleeper cabin train tickets. As most things here, the booking of the trains was very relaxed, and the 6 of us (Jack didn't come to the Delta with us) were under "Jayne Long & 5 others." So...that was interesting, but worked out fine. Les, Marinda, Danielle and I all were supposed to be in the same 4-person sleeper, but very unfortunately there turned out to be a wall in between, so D and I shared one side and the two other girls had the other side. That was kind of a bummer, but turned out we were pretty lame and ended up "sleeping" sooner than we thought. The extra $10 for this sleeper train thing was totally worth it though- I'm sure you could see Matt's blog for explanation of the "club car" tickets. Didn't sleep extremely well because of all the jerkiness and differing speeds throughout the night ride, but it was still really nice to lay down and stretch out.

Thursday: Arrived in Francistown around 7am, earlier than Danielle and I thought, as we were probably the last ones off of the train...oops. We walked through the city to the bus station, and waited only a bit for the bus to Maun, then boarded. This bus was alright for the first 5 hours, but the last 2 weren't so great...heat and cramped spaces, not awesome, but still, it was fine. We arrived in Maun around 3:30pm and caught taxis to Audi Camp. We arrived and were just so in love immediately with this place. We had three two-person tents with "bedding," which I thought may just be blankets, but it turned out to be cots and blankets, which was DEFINITELY great news. The tents were so great, and it was nice to be able to camp. This was the first time of the trip when Leslie and D and I realized ... "Hey guys, we're...camping...IN AFRICA." : ) We had many more of these moments throughout the weekend. (It reminded me of last summer when Jill and I would be doing anything in Europe and stop and look at each other and say..."Hey, just wanted to let you know, we're sitting on our hotel balcony...in Paris." Love those moments!) The bathroom/shower facilities were great, and I'm not supposed to talk about them too much because it will take a little bit of credibility out of our "camping in the wilderness" credentials, but HEY we still slept outside. This campsite also had a restaurant, bar, pool...it was amazing. It was definitely a plus when we realized during dinner this first night that we probably wouldn't have to hit up any grocery stores the whole trip, as we all had enough food for breakfasts, and our lunches were covered both days, great news! Ended up Thursday night getting pretty bundled up to go to bed, don't think we quite prepared ourselves enough for the freezing freezing freezing cold night, but we definitely knew better the next couple nights. It was so incredibly peaceful to be able to sleep pretty much outside (tent walls don't really count, do they?) and listen to the bugs and donkeys and goats and cows (they roam freely in this country...), it reminded me of camping trips at home, and I kept thinking how proud my dad and my uncles would be of me being such a camping pro this weekend.

Friday: Woke up, showered EXTREMELY fast in the open-air showers, definitely pretty cold, but fine 5 minutes afterwards. Ate a quick breakfast, and headed off to our first adventure- horseback riding!
Now. I have limited experience on horses, as in, once a year on Memorial Day at my great Uncle and Aunt's, being led by my Papa, who I trusted completely, on horses that I thought were pretty trustworthy, and one excursion on a pony (yes, with two girls on it, so not too scary) at a girl's retreat at Bettina's parents' farm YEARS ago. All that to say, I was excited about this trip, but a little bit apprehensive. We arrived, and were assigned our horses, mine was named Kwena, Setswana for crocodile- which I just shrugged off at the time. He seemed like a pretty good horse, except I was warned to not let any other horse get too close to his backside because he likes to kick. Not too comforting news when I'm already nervous, but still...I was okay. Danielle and Marinda did an amazing job of comforting me and I was definitely laughing the first few minutes while being quite nervous at the same time. Once we took off, Les and I stayed way towards the back, and after we did our first "trot," Les asked me "Hey, Jayne, remember that Full House when Michelle falls off her horse and-" "YES, LESLIE THAT'S ALL THAT'S BEEN GOING THROUGH MY MIND." All I could really picture was this horse taking off and me not knowing what to do, and in that case, I'd decided I may just jump off, but wasn't so sure how that'd go. So. I was quietly nervous for the first half hour of so. But our guide, Kila, or as he told us "Sticky Buns" (a nickname to say how well he can stay on horses) was so incredibly kind to me and stayed with me if I was ever nervous, helped me learn how to trot, and comforted me completely. We rode through the bush for about an hour and a half or so, and saw some cool plants, cows, donkeys (which Kila tried to convince us were deadly lions), and just beautiful open spaces. We stopped for a great little picnic lunch, and by this time I was feeling more and more comfortable with my horse. As we went to get back on the horses, I realized Kwena had spent our lunchtime in the nearby pond just wading around, which explained the crocodile namesake. After we'd been on our horses for about 15 minutes after lunch, the water arrived. At the beginning of this trip, they had told us we would be going through water, so we may need to hold our cameras up, but I don't think any of us anticipated just HOW deep this water would be. Our guide went first and all the way across so he could stand and take some pictures of all of us crossing. Now Kwena, being SO fond of water, was very eager to take me in, and that he did. I was soaked from waist-down by the time I emerged this first water-excursion. It was great though, and for sure had all of us laughing and smiling really big, and I definitely felt by this time I trusted my horse. After this, the more experienced riders (AKA the non-scaredy cats) took off in a canter/gallop and Kila got me up to a canter for a few seconds, which I was pretty proud of! : ) He then stopped me pretty abruptly to show me an eagle so my pride was short-lived, but oh well. We then hit another river to cross, which turned out to be even DEEPER, and this time I emerged pretty soaked from the chest-down. Again though, it was all part of the ride, and so much fun, and kept us cool until we were picked up and taken back to camp! : ) We spent the rest of the afternoon back at Audi completely relaxing by the pool, reading, and talking. Much needed relaxation va-cay time! This night I wore THREE pairs of pants and a few shirts and a jacket, so I felt a little warmer!

Saturday: Woke even earlier this morning to head off for our all-day Mokoro trip. Rode for 2 hours in an open-air safari vehicle where my face was almost close to freezing off because of the wind. I kept my face covered for the first hour or so by a blanket to attempt to block out the wind...but no such luck. The sun finally started to warm us and we saw some zebras and other wildlife on our way to the river, and that was so fun to just see them out in the open. Once we arrived at the river, we met our guides, three guys from the local village that are "polers" by profession, and have been doing this for years. Mokoros are canoe-like boats that are made from hollowed out trees and basically sit RIGHT on the water with about an inch from the top of the boat to the water. We got in, and took off, and it was so pretty. The poler moves you through the water by using a large stick- a pole - to push through the mud and reeds, and the path of water is pretty thin in between all of the extremely high grass. The sun was so gorgeous on the water though, and it definitely warmed us pretty fast. We were on the water for about 2 hours, then arrived at a camp site, where we left our jackets and bags and went on a "bush walk." We didn't see much during this walk, but we did see some more zebras, up pretty close this time, and also some elephant bones that were gigantic, and were only a year or so old. We didn't make it to the hippo pond, which I was kind of disappointed in at the time, but it was okay because we were all pretty warm and hungry. We headed back to the campsite, where we ate our sandwiches and fruit. After this, we got back on the Mokoros to head back to our drop-off site.
Okay. The whole time we've been here I've been quite intrigued by hippos. I'm not quite sure why, but I just want to see them, and always ask if we can see them. It's kind of what my team members always laugh at me about, me and my hippo fascination. I know they kill more people in Africa than any other animal, but hey, I thought it'd be pretty cool to see them- don't ask why. (And the week before I left home, Charlie and Emma and I saw the hippos at the Topeka Zoo and they don't do much except lay down and since then I've just really wanted to see them in the wild here.) So. We're on the Mokoros, this time it's Leslie and I with the funny poler and we're leading the way of the three mokoros, and we're just going along pretty well, having a good ol' time. All of the sudden our poler stops and the two mokoros behind us stop abruptly too. We hear this pretty big sloshing footstep noise about 10 feet ahead of us in the reeds. At this point I think my heart sped up to like 50 times what it normally is, and not exactly because I was excited. I look back at our poler, who looks at Les and I and says "I think it might be the hippos." I ask, "is that bad?" And he nods at me. I'm scared out of my MIND, and Leslie and I start whispering to each other about how we don't want to die by hippo attack, and what do we do, and we're holding each other for dear life (okay, she's definitely holding me more than I'm holding her, but she was scared too). We look back and Danielle and Marinda have the biggest smiles on their face and tell us excitedly they are so happy to be so close to hippos, and they hope we can see them! Les and I turned around and didn't say a word to those two. Finally after a few minutes of silence, our poler takes off (remember, we're first in line, so first meal for the hippos about 5 feet away at this point, just hidden behind the tall reeds) and Leslie and I are still holding each other for dear life, turning our heads away from where we heard the sound, scrunching our eyes shut as if maybe this will keep us alive. D and Marinda still thought we were hilarious for how scared we were, and D managed to snap a pic of us holding each other and averting our eyes. We finally made it about 5 minutes away and my heart slowed down. Les told me later she could feel my heart beating throughout my entire body, and we laughed pretty hard once we OUT of the water about how scared we were...but decided that YES, we definitely want to see hippos, but NOT when we are sitting in THEIR water with absolutely no where to go. Les said all she could think was the headline back home reading "SIX KSU STUDENTS EATEN BY HIPPOS" and Jack having to go back to Kansas explaining that the hippos got the rest of us. I have to mention too, that our poler thought it was absolutely hilarious how terrified we were, and thought it was great to keep reminding us later about the hippos.
Along the way though, AFTER the hippo incident, Les all of the sudden gasped and we looked over at a clearing in the reeds, and about 30 feet from us there was a giraffe just eating in the trees. It was so incredible, we weren't in a park or a zoo or anything, it was just a huge huge giraffe out in the wild. When the other two boats pulled up, it ran away, and that was an incredible sight to see too, this huge animal galloping away...so cool. We never saw elephants, but we saw a palm tree over the reeds probably about 50 feet away that was shaking pretty hard at the top, and our polers told us that was because the elephants were shaking it to get the fruit down from the top...so that was cool! All in all, it was an awesome day, and it was cool to be so close to the wildlife, and on the water like we were, which was absolutely gorgeous. Spent the evening at Audi again, (I'm telling you, we were pretty obsessed with this place) had an amazing dinner and packed up our stuff for the early morning. This night I stayed very warm because the sun I had gotten on my face and arms was radiating throughout my blankets keeping me toasty!

Sunday: Got on the morning bus back to Francistown, had a much less crowded ride, and had some good quality reflection, journaling and quiet time. Listened to some good music and just sat and thought for a long time, which was really nice. We arrived in F-Town at about 2:30pm, realized we had about 6 hours until the train left, sat around and played cards for a few hours, read a little, and relaxed. Danielle and Matt and I headed down to the station around 5:30pm to stand in line to book tickets, thinking it'd be an hour at the most, and then we could eat before we boarded, but turned out we didn't get out of line until around 8pm. It worked out perfect though, we had time to eat, and had plenty of time to catch our train. Slept better this time, definitely.

Monday: Arrived in Gabs at about 5:45am this morning, we all groggily jumped off the train, and caught a taxi back here to UB. It took me a while to fall asleep, so I checked emails, got to talk to Charlie for the first time in a couple weeks, but I was asleep by 7, and stayed that way until about 10. It's just been a day of relaxing, unpacking, reorganizing, and getting excited to go back to our projects. The vacation weekend was incredible, and was such a fun time getting to spend it with each other, and energizing for all of us. I came back with amazing memories, great pictures, and a pretty good start on a tan for the summer! And I think we all are super excited to go back to our kids tomorrow, which is a great feeling.

And...if you haven't had enough after this five-hour read, you can definitely check out my picture site for more pics, there are some great ones of the delta, and also check out Danielle's blog for videos of our trip and also of the kids. Love you all and miss you all like crazy, my only wish for a change of this past weekend was to be able to share it with my family, but we'll all just have to come back here. ; ) Sounds fine to me...

Our Dear Friend Billy

Still enjoying every second here, adventures and mishaps and happiness and not so great things too. I've been thinking a lot lately about where we're at and why I'm here, and especially what my reason is for being at the school and Tlamelo. Before we arrived here in my mind I guess I thought that I would really have liked to be able to do something medical or at least healthcare related. But the fact is, the more I'm here and working each day in the school of at Tlamelo, I realize that the relationships I'm forming there with the students and children are probably things I would have missed working in a healthcare environment, and the influence they are having on me and that I am maybe having on them is something I would not exchange for anything. I'm starting to appreciate the routine more, and feeling like God has really put me in this place and those projects for a reason, if for anything to teach ME lessons about life and loving and serving, and hopefully I'm serving and giving something to my students and kids each day too. I talked to one of my best friends from home last night, Rachel, and our talk really helped me to put all of this into perspective (although she probably didn't realize it!) and for that I am so grateful. Thank you to everybody back home for all of your prayers and thoughts, I think that I am definitely feeling them each day and that I am being protected and comforted and hopefully led in each step.

And now for the adventure of the weekend...I should have blogged this when it all first happened, because it was way fresher in my mind on Saturday evening, but I will do as best as I can to give you the full story!
On Saturday morning at 7am we all 7 met at the front gate of the University. Teacher Shirley, one of the pre-school teachers from our school was taking all of us plus Ana and Jessica (the two girls from KSU who are back again this year but on their own this time) to Gamadubu, a village about an hour and a half outside of Gaborone. We arrived at her tiny little truck (see below...) only to realize there were nine of us, plus three more to fit. We squeezed nine of us into the back of the truck...and it was definitely a TIGHT fit. But an adventure, nonetheless.

Once we arrived at Gamadubu, we began to chop vegetables (this day I learned how to chop cabbage, every day it's something new!) and get kind of acquainted with this particular feeding project. Teacher Shirley started this project 5 years ago after she met a boy on the side of the road who told her about the plight of the children in Gamadubu. She decided that something needed to be done, and since then, she has continued each Saturday to serve the children in this village, most of them who are sponsored, and there are 137 children that attend each week. It was so cool to be able to visit another feeding project and help out wherever we were needed, and also to see these new children and a village that was definitely very primitive even compared to Old Naledi.

The interesting part started about 5 minutes after we arrived however. Teacher Shirley announced to us that herself and a man that helps her with the project were giving us a goat. A live goat...that would soon turn not so alive. We all kind of looked at each other, realizing that this is a huge gift and a major sign of respect and honor, but definitely not of the type we are used to back home. But, as we've done so many times so far this trip, we decided to just go with the flow. About an hour later a few boys came up with a goat on a lead, tied it to a tree, and left it there for a few hours. After it seemed like maybe our friend Billy (we named him, which turned out to be not such a good idea, because I think it fostered some attachment to the poor thing) had defied death, all of the sudden a few of the older boys of the village called Matt and Jack over and announced it was time for Billy to meet his end. Jack felt way too squeamish to be involved, and even though the deed is supposed to be for the males of the village, Leslie and Marinda and I decided to take a peek at the proceedings. And...it was just as we thought it would be I guess. They killed our Billy, cut him into pieces and then literally hung him out to dry. And so we have dinner for quite a few days in our freezer. DEFINITELY an experience I will never forget.

Amidst the rest of the day, a chicken was also killed (Marinda did that deed, it was great), we rode on an "African taxi"- a donkey pulled cart-, learned how to make papata- a Botswana flat bread-, played with some precious amazing children, met some incredible women, watched a gorgeous sunset, and squeezed back into the truck, this time with an one extra human, a not so alive goat (now packed into an extra plastic bag that a comforter had originally been in...) and a not so alive chicken. All in all, the day was not one that will probably ever be forgotton, and experiences that were amazing.

Sunday morning we finally made it to church, after discovering it had kind of been right under our noses the whole time. We were a little early to Old Naledi, so we decided to go see what little kids we could round up and take them with us. We went to a house or area of houses that is right by the Tlamelo Project, where we know a bunch of our little ones live. We got there and were met with open arms from the parents, who quickly gathered all of their kids and washed their faces, changed their clothes, and handed them over. We actually gathered quite a few more than we were expecting, and it was the best thing walking through the village to church, just the 5 of us Americans each holding one or two of our little kids and the others holding our hands. I really wish I had a picture but I think the mental one will last quite a while. Church was good, it lasted quite a while, but it was really nice to be back in that environment and also to have the new experience of church here. We attended The Open Baptist church, which is the one that sponsors Tlamelo, so a lot of the ladies we work with in the kitchen were there, along with more of the kids we see everyday, so that was really neat too. The rest of Sunday was extremely lazy, which was very nice. We took naps, lounged around, and talked to family. I also got to talk to Jill for the first time in a month (we usually talk about every day during the school year so I think I've definitely been on withdrawal!) and we had so many laughs and stories and adventures to share...SO great. : )

The last couple days have been working at the school and the project and getting prepared for our weekend travels! Tomorrow during the day we are going to renew our visas, as they only gave us 30day visas when we entered a month ago. (CRAZY that we've been here a month.) Then at 8pm we are headed to the train station, where we get all aboard at 9:30 to leave for Francistown. We think that train ride is about 7 hours, and Marinda, Danielle, Leslie and I got the sleeper cabin for the four of us so that will be very fun...time for some pillow talk! From Francistown we board a bus to take us to Maun, where we should arrive sometime in late afternoon on Thursday. Travel, like most things around here, is pretty laid back, so the times of departure and arrival aren't exactly set but we're confident we'll arrive even if we do have a few adventures along the way. ; ) Friday we have a horseback ride planned all day around the Okavango Delta, and then Saturday is the all-day Mokoro trip through the Delta. I'm sure I'll have many stories and pictures to share when we get back! Sunday we begin our journey back, and we should arrive home at the UB sometime early Monday morning. I'm so excited for this trip, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we embark on yet another adventure!!