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!