Boitumela

Dumelang!

Its been a great week already. We're still in orientation, and have sessions, which are lecture and discussion, every day. Sometimes 4 or 5 in a day, which is quite a lot. In the midst of it, we've tried our best with some impromptu language lessons.

My 'ear for languages' is delighted to not only learn an African language (where pronunciation is NOTHING like spelling appears), but also to hear people speaking English with absolutely beautiful accents and voices.

Sessions have been amazing, from living with HIV, to gender, to history, to volunteer living, and presentations from various NGOs.

We are exhausted all the time because our days are extremely planned and scheduled and busy. We get to bed at 9 or 10 everynight, but find ourselves waking up at 6:30 before the alarm goes. Its certainly a nice change of pace.

Food has been very good. Botswana is more modern and westernized, for the most part, than people generally realize.

Everyone we've been in contact with have been very friendly and helpful. Today, our general guide, Olefile, gave us all Setswana names, which he roughly tried to match to our personalities or meanings of our english names.
Mine is Boitumela, which means happiness