Ka Leboga

(KA LAY-bo-ha) Thank you

After a few upsetting and/or frustrating days this week, the last few were a different thing altogether.

On Thursday, we finally went to the preschool affiliated with the hospice. Its for OVC clients, and children of clients/patients of the hospice, and theyre all 3-6 years old. While it is part of the hospice, its physically in a different part of town entirely, and since transportation is always a big problem (maybe the biggest problem), it took us until this week to convince and remind them to let us go, and find a way for us to get there.

It was incredibly fun....basically just another day of playing with cute affectionate children. And yet again, we watched one of the "older" ones (5 or 6), spoon feeding a younger one (3 or 4), to help him finish his food, and then clear his plates for him.

Interestingly also, this week within our group we've done all of our ASO (AIDS support organization) presentations. So, it was just, within our group in the evenings we gave short informal presentations about our various placements, the organizations, and our own 'accomplishments' and challenges. Though we've all been discussing our placements throughout the past weeks, it was good to do a slightly more organized, official, presentation. One of the advantages of coming in a group like this is that we get to hear a lot (and occasionally see) about the other placements, in addition to experiencing our own. Oddly enough, it came across that half the placements are very well funded and have all the resources they need, and the other half are in a constant financial struggle. This is because they are all NGOs and mostly funded by international donors, resulting in a very wide range of levels of support.

On friday at work, the Combis (vans) were apparently being serviced, so there were no patients, and no home visits for us....essentially nothing to do. Rather than sit around, I left right after lunch and met some other people in my group at the hospital, and spent the afternoon visiting and playing with children in the pediatric ward at the hospital. A doctor at their clinic placement had asked them to start going, because some of the childrens' parents are busy working or live in a rural area too far to visit them.

Visiting sick lonely children obviously sounds like a sad experience, but it was a lot of fun -- no matter how sick they are, children will still be children -- and felt pretty meaningful, and was really rewarding. Since then I've been back to visit everyday, and started to even get to know some of the children.

Yesterday we went to play at SOS childrens villages again, and then went to Botswana craft. It's a craft store where everything is actually guaranteed to have been made in Botswana. We saw the most beautiful and intricate (and expensive) baskets!

Today we went to church again, and I loved every minute of singing and yelling and clapping as last time. It was even better this time because only 4 of us went, and I'm realizing that the smaller a group we are, the more integrated into the community or the people we are with.

On thursday, as a group, we all threw all the donations we'd brought from home on the floor, and then divided them up between placements appropriately (kids clothes went to placements with kids, books to placements that need them most, etc), and we took them to work on Friday.

We have only 2 days left of our placement, and then just another day and a half in this country. Sadly.