Mothers Day: – Happy Mothers Day to all my friends that are Mothers – you have all made the world a better place for all the loving you put in the world!
Especially to my mom and Grandma!
The Garden: Has not been going so good. Not only is it the eye sore of the neighbourhood, and there are a lot of big eye sores here; it has been fairly unproductive. Each plant only produces one small stunted vegetable or maybe nothing. I think it is because the soil doesn’t have enough nutrients – and hopefully our winter worth of composting will help next year.
- The Garden – Eyesore
- The meager fruits of our garden – This is the entire harvest to date!
- Kids at play in our yard
The kids: We are the funnest people in the neighbourhood to play with. Yesterday there were about 12 kids that came over to draw, play ball, jump rope, play Frisbee or just crawl around on our laps. Last night I enjoyed it – and I do most of the time – but sometimes I just don’t want to play with the kids. But they always always always want to play with us. When they want to play and I don’t we generally have talks like this:
Kid: Can you come out and play?
Me: No – I don’t feel like playing today.
Kid: Can I come in and read?
Me: No, I am busy today and I don’t have time.
Kid: Can I please colour by myself?
Me: Not today – I have a lot of work to do.
Kid: Can I come in and clean the bathroom?
Me: OK – (about 25% of the time I say yes to that).
I am not kidding – they regularly ask if they can scrub the tub, sweep/mop the floor, weed/water the garden or help with dishes.
So when we are not in the mood we often don’t answer the door. If we don’t answer the door they pound on the door for five or ten minutes screaming, “Carol!!! John!!! Gofaone! Tiro!! – I heard you talking!!!!” We have tried to explain how we knock on people’s doors in America – but it has not sunk in yet. Hence the sign:
- A little playmate, come out and play with me……….
We will see if this works.
University of Louisville: The University has an International Business Studies program as well as a Pan-African studies program. One of its programs is using sports to teach development. The School has a program that integrates several different disciplines to come up with a weeks’ worth of education programs in an Africa school, specially involving the children in the sports development. UofL works with the University of Botswana Education Program and together they target schools or NGO’s to visit. Kwena Sereto was selected for the third year.
Four UofL students came to the school and introduced their sports programs and other issues that affect the kids such as “Anti-Bullying” and “Learn to Listen”. The children were very receptive and really enjoyed the presentations. They especially enjoyed the sport activities and I don’t think they noticed the games were geared towards team building and competition.
The best part of all was they invited us all to a free dinner at one of the nicer restaurants/bars in Gaborone. A couple of teachers from school drove us and a fun time was had by all. I told some school people I was interested in pursuing a MPH when our service was done and they strongly encouraged me to apply there as they believe Peace Corps service is one of the most outstanding educational programs which one can participate and they said they were always looking to employ good IT guys – so who knows – maybe we will end up in Louisville when this is done. (It is an excellent town to enjoy the arts in as well).
- Some teachers from School at the Dinner with me
- John and I clean up nice every once in a while
- University of Louisville, Peace Corps and Teachers
- Mia bringing in bunch of fun stuff for dinner!
Friends: Two of my friends from the Peace Corps, (Mia and Celia) came over this weekend to make me a special belated Birthday dinner. We had LAMB, pita bread and Tzatzike made from scratch, ginger carrots, a salad and Betty Crocker Carrot Cake (sent by Dad and Karyl). It took the three of us about 4 hours to cook the dinner and we spent hours enjoying the dinner and talking about life. It almost felt exactly like an American dinner party. It is nice when we can put together a few minutes that feel like a piece of America!
- Lamb for Dinner!
The Jack Wagon: Louie, formally known as “The Jack Wagon” figured out how to send a box! He did report “illegal contraband” directly on the customs form and they made him open the box and remove it, so it was only half full – but hey, he got it done! (We weren’t sure he would ever be able to figure it out – and we were just planning on getting the box upon return to America). So we now want to publicly retract the public name calling. He is suspended from the Jack Wagon list (for now) and is now just a dear friend! Thanks for the box Louie!
- Louie – no longer a Jack Wagon – Just a regular good guy and awesome friend!
Gaborone Time