Blog #20 – In the Groove!

Today is Wednesday.

Alright, this is starting to get weird; for the first time in my life I almost have a 9-5 job!?! I take refuge in the fact that sometimes I will start at eight and sometimes work until six or seven…but still this is something that I was never used to! It is so routine. I get up around the same time, have my breakfast, make my tea, pack my lunch and walk to work…it almost feels grown up? Odd!

The nice thing is that every day has been completely different – and today was the first day that I felt natural at what I was doing and that I finally fit in. Perhaps it was having a day of school visits done, perhaps it was because it was hump day (I love Wednesdays!)…who knows.

Today my goal was to develop some really effective visual aids for the presentation. I wanted to be able to make the concepts visual and the relations as tangible lessons. The other goal was to make sure it was accessible in English and Setswana...and compliments of Kenny this was doable! I got them all done up, laminated and cut up. The school visits started getting noticeably better today! I started learning ways of changing my language so that it was more accessible. Kenny and I also started working together much better. He started translating a lot more and at the end of the presentations it was obvious that the kids were getting the message from the questions they asked and the answers they gave!

Kids really are amazing! They hold so much potential and are so full of life. Yes, they think that I am the weirdest thing they have witnessed in their life: a tall, lanky, white boy, but they are not judgmental. It is neat to think that these school children in a few decades will be the ones running the country. However, just with working with them today you can see that some are really quite mature about understanding the ecological issues. Some of really quite developed in their understanding and use of English. This is what I find challenging….are these the kids that will end up in positions of power? Or are these the kids that are going to do so well that they go out of the country and never return? One of this country’s struggles is trying to retain their best people – especially doctors! It has made me think a little bit of possibly coming back in the future to help and volunteer in the medical field…who knows?...

Enough about the future though! Today was a good day at work and things finally falling together nicely. Tonight the four girls left from our field course who have been backpacking Botswana were hitchhiking their way from Dakar to Maun! I met up with them after work, and with their stocked up groceries we headed back home. We spent the night at the house playing with the girls. It was a really nice relaxing evening. However, it is REALLY starting to get cold here at night…or I am just getting more sensitive to it! I have started to get a little tickle in my throat and I think I may be coming down with a cough! It only gets down to five degrees Celsius here, but it still feels frigid! The problem is that by noonday it is thirty degrees so it is impossible to dress for the weather! Their winter really is quite fantastically warmed compared to ours, and it is really funny to me to still see the locals dressed up in sweaters and jackets during the midday heat (to me!) I am not quite there yet…I am still loving the warm sun and enjoying the heat :)