I ate braai meat

 Hey pals!

Soooooooooooo, what's up what's up what's up! I've officially been doing the Botswana thing for 58 days! Cool or what!

This past week was different than the usual grind because I worked from the capital everyday. There are some pretty interesting things on the horizon these days, and a lot of writing needed to happen, so I hunkered down in a quiet boardroom and typed away all week. It was GREAT to be so productive and not have my shoulder tapped every two minutes, but I miss the kids at Stepping Stones, and I definitely didn't love commuting almost two hours to and from work everyday. My days were longggggggg. Two things I'm working on:

1. Since Beverly-Jean did some major restructuring, we're completely revamping the Leadership program curriculum. This is a BIG job. Its everything from reviewing 50+ activities, to re-writing the annual calendar, to developing new sessions, to updating templates, to reorganizing and renaming all the files. Tedious stuff. And challenging in terms of having to continually think of creative ways to meet our new learning objectives.

2. I reeeeally didn't expect this, but I'm once again finding myself doing research. Starting this week, I'll be conducting home interviews with the men involved in the Mochudi MenCare father's group. Initially I thought it would be an informal, basic info kind of thing. But after a bit of a push from my supervisor, we've decided to do some full-on qualitative research. I was pedal to the medal this week to write a research proposal so we can get ethics clearance early this week. I only have four more months to work with soooooo, I'm going to have to push. This is an excellent opportunity and I'm excited to get at it- I just caaaant believe I'm doing this again! After getting halfway through my MA, I'm feeling a little burnt out from academia. BUT, the semi-structured interview guide is looking good, and I'm excited to start talking to the men. We'll be exploring conceptions of fatherhood and the effects of the MenCare group. I'm dreading the transcription already, but when else will I get to do some research in Africa?! Plus, the research is soooo relevant to my field (awwww heyyyyyy gender studies!) and I'm already learning a lot from the literature review. The benefits of caring and engaged fathers are ENDLESS! The positive outcomes rise dramatically for women, children, and men themselves when men have healthy relationships with their families. Such hopeful findings! More to come on this as I delve into it.

So, some things about my life this week:

- Transit to and from the capital was sooooo interesting (and sometimes pretty rough). For one, I was alone, and it was quite a different experience without having Kate as a travel buddy. I hitchhiked in every morning, took the bus back each night, and every ride was an adventure. Sometimes I have lovely chats. Sometimes it's so hot that my arm sweat mixes with someone else's arm sweat. Sometimes (like, this whole week) I have really bad luck finding seats on the bus, so I ended up standing in the aisle and hanging on for dear life. It's a tough job to stay upright on buses with such sketchy transmission and bumpy ass roads and barely enough room to move. For one drive the bus was so full that I had to stand in the stairwell, right at the front. It was kind of scary because the door didn't close well, but I luckily made it home in one piece

- One thing I love about Botswana: men have NO SHAME in their musical choices. The drivers I'd end up with for the hitchhikes were SO great. I drove with 50-60 year old men who would enthusiastically sing along to Celine Dion, ABBA, Justin Beiber, and the cheesiest love songs imaginable. SO funny! I love it! And I deeeefinitely joined in for ABBA

- I got my very first letter in the mail, all the way from Canada!!! What an INCREDIBLE treat! Ewa, thank you! I love you!

- Men often refer to women by saying "my sister," and I looooove it. I don't know why, but I find it so comforting and friendly.

- I saw my first "tumbleweave" this week, blowin on down the street in Gabs. I giggled!

- Maybe we're questionable humans, but Kate and I have been having a lot of fun with men who won't stop hitting on us. Men can be very forward, so we've developed some really creative back stories to try and halt the advances. It can be pretty funny. Sometimes I have a boyfriend in Zimbabwe, sometimes I'm married to someone in Canada, sometimes I have kids, sometimes Kate and I are sisters watching out for each other, sometimes Kate and I live with really jealous boyfriends, we just get really creative with it. They probably aren't our finest moments, buuuuuuuut we're just makin it work!

- Kate is the only one who will truly understand how much chocolate I eat here. It's really full on. Like.. every single day. I'm pretty sure it's because I miss Canada food so much and chocolate is the one familiar thing. Well, that, and the fact that chocolate is insanely delicious. 

- Yoga has been amazingly wonderful for my head space. Every time I practice I thank baby jesus that I brought my mat. 

- We spent basically the entire weekend in Gabs and had a random and crazy Saturday. We started out by going to a fair/expo thing. It was pretty decent. There were a zillion booths for just about everything, and outside there were rides and carnival stuff. It was interesting to see so many people in one place.After the fair, our friends invited us over to someone's place, so we went without any idea of what was going on. We showed up to at least a dozen men sitting around drinking beer. It was a liiiiittle intimidating, but our friends were great hosts and introduced us to everyone. As it turns out, there was a huge football match going on in South Africa, so we all crammed and jammed into a tiny living room to watch the game. It was the Kaizer Chiefs versus the Pirates. We were told to cheer for the Chiefs, and ohhhhh my GOD did these guys ever get into it. There was betting, there was name calling, there was SO much passion. Here we were on a tiny couch with a good fifteen men all squeezed in to see the TV, and they were yelling and jumping up and down after every play. It was SO fun! And they were very welcoming and willing to explain everything to us. We also came to find out that we were at the house of a very well-known Botswana football player. It was neat! We had no idea the guy was a sports celeb, but after the fact other people were surprised to hear we were with him. We spent Saturday night with our new crew, and it was a lot of fun for us! For the first time, I ate braai meat! It still seems so strange to me to be like "WOOO SATURDAY NIGHT! LET'S BUY SOME RAW BEEF AND COOK IT!" Not to mention that the guy who bought the meat ended up getting t-bones and GIBLETS… like, giblets?! Really?! But you know, it was actually VERY delish! Well, the t-bones were anyway. No giblets for this gal thank you very much!

- Today (Sunday), we ran a bunch of errands in Gabs, came back to Mochudi, and went to visit our Botswana grandmother, the lovely woman we stayed with for our first month. It was SO nice to see her and the all the other faces we hadn't seen in a while. It was a very nice way to spend our Sunday evening, and she sent us home with fresh grapefruit from her tree. SOOOO DELISH!

Sooooo that's all for now! I may be at a conference Monday and Tuesday next week, so if I'm off the grid for longer than usual, that's why. 

The adventure continues!

Peace and love!

Shila

The expo

Paaaaaaacked

There were a few decent rides

Saturdayyyyyy

A letter, ALL the way from CANADA! Thank you Ewa!!! <3 <3

A looooovely conversation with my baby brother, who's
 all the way in the YUKON! Love you, miss you!

The most important FaceTime conversation yet. Hey little baby! I miss you my preshy doddy!!!!!!!!

Coolest thing I've eaten in a while: a Shannon fruit. It looks like a tomato, has the texture of a pumkin but harder inside, and it's REALLY sweet. Very tasty overall! 

Our Botswana grandmother said we could pick some
grapefruit from her tree. Nommmmmmm!

The adventures continue

 Hi team!

Seven whole weeks in Botswana! What is this madness? The time is mostly flying and sometimes it STILL doesn't feel entirely real.

I miss my elephant BFF Star, I'm pretty sure she misses me too, but it's nice to be back in the Mochudi groove. I'm bathed, back in clean clothes, unpacked, and rested from our fantastic trip last week, so this week I'll start by catching you up on all the exciting (and ever-changing) things happening at Stepping Stones:

- First of all, sending a MAJOR shout out to the wonderful Cherlyn, a volunteer from Pennsylvania, who left us this weekend! She got here a week before we did. Sad days to see her go. Cherlyn, I'm glad you went out on a desert-filled bang, thanks for the rice, the cover, the kettle, and especially your company! We miss you already!

- A consultant/prof from Toronto, Beverly Jean Daniel, was at Stepping Stones for a few weeks to evaluate our curriculum and the programs generally. Her work was SUPER helpful! She gave us a powerful presentation about the importance of using a strength-based approach to everything that we do. The philosophy reminds me a lot of asset-based community development. In a nutshell, she was trying to get us to change the way that we talk about and interact with the kids. It's easy to come to Stepping Stones and see endless challenges: the kids are orphaned, vulnerable, undereducated, impoverished, sometimes mischievous, and they require a lot of energy. But defining them by what they LACK is the worst idea. Instead, it's important to see all the strengths they possess: they are surviving, insanely resilient, show up every single day, and even have smiles on their faces. It's all about perspective. And the root of it all is in the small day-to-day interactions with the kids. If a kid gives the wrong answer, don't say "No, that's wrong." That shuts them down and makes them disengage. Instead, say "That's interesting, that's close, that's a good place to start, let's see if we can go further" etc etc etc. The way we frame things makes all the difference. Another example of framing is when we think about street kids. "Street kids" has a pretty negative connotation. Instead, Beverly asked us to use "street-engaged youth", and to focus on all the skills these kids DO have: they know Mochudi inside and out, they have extensive social networks, they are street-savvy and know the prices of a lot of things, they are independent, they are resourceful. It was so great. Her main insights were the following:

1. There are multiple VALID realities: No right and wrong, no better and worse, just "different"
2. That wherever we go, we are ALWAYS learners: Once you become an expert, you shut down endless learning and growing opportunities
3. Our personal versions of the story are only partial: Man, TRUUUUUTH on this one! I re-learn this fact every single day. The second I think I know something, I find out something new and it all changes
4. Being OPEN to a space is very important: Sometimes we gotta toss our biases and preconceived ideas to the very best of our abilities. If you view something by what it LACKS, you are limiting potential for new and great things
5. Change your perspective and redefine things: When we hear "poverty", we think of a slew of negative and sad things. But what is there to be learned? There is no questioning the fact that poverty is awful. But within poverty, people learn to be resourceful, to be resilient, to share with one another, to appreciate things.

A strength-based approach is great, isn't it?! I'm grateful I could sit in on this presentation.

- I had another Teen Club session, and I'm at a MUCH better place with it all. It's still hard for me emotionally, but I would be doing these kids the ultimate disservice to only see their HIV-positive status. The sessions themselves are wonderful supportive and fun, and there is definitely a great solidarity within the group. This week, we talked about the importance of adherence, of disclosure, and of the importance of psychological well-being. These kids are really, really amazing, and I'm just happy to get to know them. There's a lot to be learned from them.

- I finally had my first MenCare father's group session! It was AWESOME! As you may recall, I feel less than qualified for this part of my job. I am 22, white, from Canada, and most importantly don't have any kids. I was intimidated to even be there period. But the fathers, about a dozen of them, were THE BEST! Some of them were still expecting, and others had brand new babies. It was a super informal structure, so we all just sat around and talked about everything from breastfeeding to C-section births to sleeping routines to teething. And maaaaaan there are SO many interesting cultural things here in relation to fatherhood. One example: depending on how traditional a family is, a man may leave his wife for up to three months after the birth of the baby, and he won't see them at all. This is because of traditional beliefs that the dad may make the baby sick. Also, again, depending on how traditional a family is, it is sometimes believed that if a baby is born with Down's syndrome, it's because the father slept with someone else during the three-month separation period. MenCare has an education component, but on topics like these we have to be respectful of traditional Setswana culture, so it was hard to stay mute throughout that whole discussion. Some of the dads were entirely progressive though, and I appreciated their input A LOT! They warmed my heart! Their homework was to be alone with their kids for three hours. Some of the men were entirely on board, while others were like … Three hours?!?!?! Baby steps though right? And as it turns out, the zillions of hours I put into advanced developmental psychology in uni paid off. I did in fact have some useful info to contribute. The biggest challenge is recruiting- it's the dedicated and engaged fathers that come, not the fathers who need the sessions the most. Seriously though, check out www.men-care.org. It's AWESOME! 

- We had the huge privilege to visit some of the houses that Stepping Stones is building. One of the amazing ladies at SSI has been doing tons of fundraising, and a few houses have been completed and donated to families in need. They aren't even that much to build since they're pretty simple structures. You can build a basic house here for roughly $5,000-10,000 CDN. The coolest part? Some of our SSI kids live in them! It was so neat to see where some of our kids go after Stepping Stones. We went to two of the houses, and it was such a pleasure to meet the families there. Prior to those houses going up, some families were either homeless or sleeping with 5-10 or maybe more people per room. This was such a cool outing for us! Stepping Stones is also funding the construction of a local bakery (with help from amazing donors of course), so we checked that out as well. I hope it opens before we leave! Right now they're trying to get the inside furnished. 

The bakery is almost ready to open- I hope I get a chance to get some baked noms there!

One of the houses SSI is building. It still needs a toilet and a roof on one section, but it's coming along!

The most hilarious little babe we've seen yet. He looks like a grumpy old man!

Rural Mochudi

 - Last but not least, I made lemonade with the kids for an income generation day and it was a total blast. It took AGES to squeeze the juice by hand, and the kids kept eating the lemons raw (craaaaziness), but the final product was DELISHHHH!!!!!

Rolling the lemons to prepare them for squeezing

Lemons are orange in Botswana. 

Mid-process

Hey pals :)

 Some other pictures of things at work:

Another income generating activity: soaking paper and rolling it to make homemade beads

Cherlyn organized a lovely, lovely funfair 

A shoutout to my wonderful mother! She sent me off with a ton of small things (gum, deoderant, soap, shampoo etc) and we used the goodies for prizes. Thanks mom! 

Running some of the activities 

 As for the adventures/mishaps of my life outside of work these days:

- My handshake fails continue. This week was the worst one yet. Someone went to point at something. I thought it was a handshake. I was wrong, and I shook a finger. Shaaaaaaaame!

- We had our first rain and thunder storm, and it was SO UNBELIEVABLY GREAT!!! Such a comforting sound! And man, the plants must have been celebrating. Botswana is DRYYYY!

- We are STILL trying to buy bikes. They're surprisingly expensive in Gabs and we're having a rough time finding the time to go bike shopping. We went to pick them up one afternoon, and all we came home with was a bike lock each, and a single (badass) helmet for Kate. Apparently I have a fat head. Siiiiiiigh! Hoping to sort this out soon!

- We have a new roomie: a tiny mouse, and a bold one at that! Canadian mice run away when you find them. Botswana mice, on the other hand, hang out with you as long as they're just out of reach. I messaged my landlord, and his reply was "R u okay with a cat cos I can get one for u, thats the remedy." Ummm… hahaha as tempting as that is, a cat is a HORRIBLE idea! We haven't seen our little friend in a while though, so hopefully he found a new home. Hopefully?!?!

- I had my first real pang of homesickness. My AMAZING choir, Xara Choral Theater in Halifax (www.xara.ca) won a national choral competition, and I was SO pumped about it! To my choir loves: I am so grateful for all of you, and I miss the Xara love INSANELY much! We worked really, really hard on the recording we submitted and I was proud of our work. So I was soooo sad to not be there celebrating! But hey, almost two months without being homesick? Not bad if I do say so myself.

- The kids didn't know the Macarena, so when we tried to teach them, it became "macaroni macaroni macaroni macaroni!"

- Traveling in someone's truck bed? Definitely a thing I'm getting used to.

- WE WENT TO A TRADITIONAL WEDDING!!! It was SO cool!!! Seriously, soooo cool. We met the bride-to-be at SSI where she tutors, and we were so grateful to get an invite. Botswana weddings are crazy, they're a whole weekend long, and the bride changes into a handful of different outfits throughout the day. Another super cool thing: the entire bridal party spent three months learning these group dances, so they performed multiple times for us. And women do these high-pitched chant/call/wail things with their tongues when they're happy, so we were hearing those all afternoon. The bride was absolutely beautiful. We were so happy for her! We got her pots as a present. 

The wedding party waiting for the bride to arrive

Stepping Stones represennnnnt

Literally dancing their way in- SO COOL!

SUCH a beautiful bride! Elizabeth, thank you so much for having us :)

The super cool hippy tent from my dreams

Hiiiiii!

This is considered traditional Bots food: potato salad, yams, pounded beef, coleslaw, beet root salad, samp, and sauce. Mostly all delish!

The wedding party doing one of their performances

One of the coolest parts: there was a sound system glitch, so
during the silence, the women gathered and started singing
traditional Bots music! SO COOL! They all wear the blankets as
sign of respect to the bride.

The THIRD costume change. Craziness!

Some other things:

- Peeing in the bush, in an alley, wherever, without toilet paper? Increasingly a thing, and I'm less and less phased by it all. Now I don't even blink!

- We had a crazy night on Friday celebrating Kate's 23rd! It started out with a hitch to Gabs, then multiple courses of desert at a lovely Portuguese restaurant, then drinks at a random lodge, then, our first club! It was all a lot of fun, and it went over a zillion times better than our first bar in Mochudi. We even knew some of the songs! Yay for social scenes and dancing!!!

- I haven't washed my hair is SEVENNNNNN DAYS. A personal best (worst?)

- We're officially able to say some filthy and dishonourable things in Setswana. It's hilarious to have some new swear words up my sleeve, but I hiiiiiiighly doubt they'll ever leave my lips.

Soooo thats about it for now! I did laundry today and it feels AMAZING to have clean things. Back to the grind tomorrow. I'll be working from the capital for most of the week to help restructure a lot of the leadership curriculum. Apparently when heavy-duty writing needs to happen, staff might go to a random boardroom or house to make it happen. SSI is just such a nutty environment, and since no one has offices you're guaranteed to get interrupted a dozen times in a day. Wish me luck on all the writing!

Sending my love to Canada, I miss you all a lot a lot!

Peace and love!

Keep sending me your thoughts!

<3                                                                         

shilaleblanc@gmail.com

A bad picture, but this is probably the first thing I've cooked (made? prepared?) since getting here: guacamole! All I can say is, I've been eating an awful lot of cereal, oatmeal, and PB& banana sammies. 

I. Met. An. ELEPHANT!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY LIFE!

There are some cool Stepping Stones things that have happened, but I'm dedicating this entry to my travels, because guys. I have just had the most INSANELY AWESOME TIME EVER! I'm finally home after a 12 hour bus ride (aka the hottest sauna on the planet), and I am exhausted, bruised, sunburned, and hoarse. But it was all worth it. The trip was MARVELLOUS and SPECTACULAR, and truly out of this world!

Kate, Julia (a lovely SSI volunteer here for a month) and I decided to finally explore Africa. And oh my god. NO WORDS!!!

I still can't even believe that any of it is real!!! I feel like everyone and their dog should come here as a number one travel destination. The whole thing was EPIC!

I don't have the energy to explain it all, but in a nutshell, we went to Kasane, by the Chobe National Reserve in Northern Botswana, and then hit up Zimbabwe for some adventures. All of it was INCREDIBLE! A boat safari! A game drive! White water rafting! Traditional dancing, music, and meals! Stunning sunsets! A SHOWER! Wine! Victoria Falls! AND SO MANY INCREDIBLE ANIMALS!!!!!!!!

Our first encounter with the animals was on a boat safari in Chobe, and I LITERALLY cried tears of happiness when we got up to our first elephants. I was just SO overwhelmed by it all! I was the most genuinely happy person on the planet to see such beautiful animals! Elephants are so majestic!!! And to see them in the wild… just, wow. WOW!

We saw elephants galore, hippos, lions, water buffalo, baboons, kudu, monkeys, crocs, reptiles, giraffes, antelopes, impalas, cool birds, and ostrich. Practically the entire cast of the Lion King.

I also ate warthog (a surprisingly delicious thing) and mopani worms (NOT so delish)!

A total dream come true. I felt like I was on a different planet!

And to top it all of.

Guys.

Yesterday, my one and only African wish came true:

I FINALLY GOT TO HANG OUT WITH AN ELEPHANT!!!!!

I've seen elephants before, but I've never had the chance to actually touch one, let alone RIDE one! And it has been something I've been dreaming of for years and years. We did a safari on elephant back, and then got to hang out with and feed our new pals! 

It was incredible!!!!!

I cant even articulate the magic!

My heart exploded!

Since I'm so wiped, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Here are some highlights from the trip!

Africa is stunning. Truly stunning.

And my heart couldn't be happier about anything!!! What a time!

I'll write soon :)

After a trek down a cliff, we were ready to start the white water rafting on the Zimbezi river!

Our team!

There are no words for how beautiful it was there. The pictures do NO justice!

16 KILOMETERS OF RAPIDS!

Adrenaline, omg!

Our first flip! We were going down a class 5 rapid, the highest level you can go on commercially, and we all got thrown. We ended up having to climb onto the bottom of the raft (which was at that point facing up) and hung on for dear life through two other rapids. SO INTENSE!

I was definitely a little scared!

HI!

I'm hanging on for DEEEEAR LIFE!

Stunning!

Chobe national reserve- TRULY stunning!

Water buffalo errwhurrr!

My heart stopped beating. Our first set of elephants. I literally, literally cried tears of happiness!

You scratch my back, I scratch yours!

Wowwww wow wow wow so close

My heart exploded. I cant even deal with how majestic they are!

The happiest gal in all the land!

I died and went to heaven. Omg. Baby elephants!

A mopani worm!!! I ate about 1/3 of it and it was CHEWY!

Freezing but excited for our 6am game drive!

So. Close. Omg.

We were SO LUCKY, we saw LIONS!!!!!!!!!

Impala, described as the McDonalds of Africa. Fast food for all the big hunters!

Kudu! It ended up being one of my favorites because of how neat and exotic it is!

GIRAFFE!

On our way to Zimbabwe, and there were ELEPHANTS just hanging out on the highway!

Having a drink while overlooking a waterhole. Life cant be more perfect!

Traditional Zimbabwe music and dancing- AMAZING!

Our dinner ended, and THEN, everyone got a drum!!! There was an INTERACTIVE DRUM SESSION!!!!! I basically want to give up my life plan and become a bongo player. It was so so so unreal!

Shoestrings- the hostel that entirely stole my heart!

A wild elephant INSANELY close to us!

Chomp!

Hi pals!

On a houseboat with an open bar- hellooooo fun times!

Life = complete. Seriously!!!

The keeper was Gift, my elephant was Star!! She's 23, one year my senior, and she was simply the best elephant you could ever meet. Ever!

Time for some noms!!! Star is a miracle elephant because she only has a 3/4 length trunk. Poachers killed her family, and when she was alone in the wilderness as a small baby elephant, lions attacked her and severed her trunk. Luckily she was rescued, but no one thought she would live because elephants have these two finger things at the end of their trunks that are really important. But Star is the coolest, and learned a whole bunch of new ways to eat and do things, so now she's 100% on par with her elephant peers!! Feeding her was neat, it was like a vacuum since she cant grab small objects.

Lashes! <3

Victoria Falls- the waterfall that goes on forEVERRRRR!

I'm the happiest person who ever lived!

Breathtaking!

Is this real life?

The biggest baobab tree in Zimbabwe! Roughly 1500 years old. Can you IMAGINE the things that tree has seen?

Just leave me here k? k.

Safariiiiiiiii!

I couldnt even believe any of it!

Amazing local artistry by Dexter the artist. I've never seen anything like it, he rotates a knob and the whole entire "Global Village" comes to life. I'm pretty sure he's on Facebook.

The beautiful African landscape

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii elephants! Let me join your elephant family please! Can you tell that I love elephants?

Some spots of Vic Falls were SUUUUPER foggy and rainy.

Just wow!

Hungry hungry hippos!