Shila Travels: It's overrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Oh heyyyyy!

Sooooooooooo.
Eight months ago, I found out I was accepted into the Coady International Institute's Youth in Partnership Program, and would be sent to Botswana for SIX WHOLE MONTHS! At the time I was half excited, half terrified. And here I am! I can't even believe that my time here will be all over in a few short days!!!
Today is Sunday. We work Monday to Thursday and first thing on Friday we're on a plane!
I just can't even believe it.

I've been off the GIF train since getting here since they take so long to load, but since this is my very last in-country post (the 25th Botswana entry, to be exact), I'm a big ol soup of emotions. Remember that one chick from Mean Girls? She is me.

Well okay, maybe that's a LITTLE dramatic. I haven't had public outbursts of emotions. Yet. On Thursday the kids are having an "exams are over/farewell Shila and Kate" party, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a puddle of tears.

ANYWAY. This post is going to be all over the map. Let's do business stuff first. At work this week:

- I was hoping to be entirely done the fatherhood research by now, but we haven't finished incorporating everyone's edits for the final write up. I only have a few more days to work with, so it's going to be pedal to the metal. Gahhhhh I hope I can finish this in time. I don't want it to be stressing me out during debrief. BUT, on the plus side, since the results are already analyzed, I finished the powerpoint and the executive summary, and they look great if I do say so myself! Check it out, here's a draft of a quick 4-page summary of our findings (and ten gold stars to me for being all tech-savvy embedding PDFs and stuff):

Cool, right? The actual report is way more detailed (like, 60 some pages detailed) so get at me if you want the full write up. There are some super interesting things in there!
- I had a chance to do a trial run presentation of our research at the couples workshop this week. I was SUPER pleased to hear that locals felt that the research was representative of their community, and it was even better to have wives of the men there, nodding and "mhm"ing to things I was saying. I'll do a presentation on Tuesday for the Stepping Stones staff and another on Wednesday for some gender people from South Africa- looking forward to it!
- I broke the news that I'm leaving to my readers. It was really sad. But they are enthused about another staff who has agreed to read with them, so that's a great thing.
- There was a two-day couples workshop for the MenCare program, and it was super interesting! My lovely co-worker Des is being featured in a South African documentary about gender movements in southern Africa, so there was a crew here filming some of his sessions. Way to go Des, you are SEW FAMOUS!

Our life outside of work:
- This week was pretty routine. Our biggest thing this week: these GOD AWFUL juicy black ants that came out after a big rain. This is going to sound really over the top, but these ants literally ATTACK us by our gate. I kid you not, Kate and I have been running everywhere lately to escape these devils. Kate actually BROKE HER TOE trying to kick these blood suckers off. They are definitely out to get us! It's like they sense our vibrations or something and all run to bite us. But it isn't even the bites. The worst part is, after they chomp on us, they stay latched on! We have to take them off. It's awful. They seem to be dying down, so hopefully they only come with heavy rain.
Giant moths have also been a thing, but they're just annoying. I woke up with one stuck in my hair.
These bugs. It's too much!
- On Friday we had dinner with a few peace corps people. It was deeeelish and the company was lovely! Saturday morning we went to help set up a BBQ for the MenCare fathers fun day. Our next stop was buying a few last minute mementos to take back. It felt weird to be those white tourists buying the African keepsakes. We aren't just visitors, we've LIVED here! Anyway. Then we saw the Hunger Games with a handful of peace corps people who I'm honestly going to miss. The movie was excellent! Soooo intense. I want to re-read the books.
- Today we went to Gabs to see a friend one last time. It was a lovely afternoon/evening with delicious food and vino!
- A crazy thing happened: there was a FULL ON wind and sandstorm, so strong that everyone had to run for cover! I've never seen anything like it. You couldn't even see anything in the distance the sand was so severe. The wind was SOOOO powerful! I left my windows open at home in Mochudi, and even though Milena closed them shortly after the storm started, every single thing I owned was covered in a film of sand. The best part was, it rained and rained after the storm. The temperature is SO NORMAL today!
- Otherwise, we've been slowly getting our acts together for packing. We plan on leaving a tonnnnn of stuff behind. It's going to feel awesome! I'm so tired of the clothes I've been wearing.

Top five things that served me incredibly well these six months:

1. My beloved Birkenstocks. They are in ROUGHHHH shape, like, falling apart, missing straps, but they were the perfect shoes in the world for this place.
2. My amazing green water bottle, which has come with me practically everywhere since getting here.
3. My yoga mat, which I have been thankful to have each and every day.
4. My USB, which held 99.9% of my emails and work for this trip. I've never used a flash drive so much in my life.
5. My crazy magic backpack, which took a total beating but is still in amazing shape. It's from Eddie Bauer, and it's one of those bags that folds up into a tiny square. I'm SO happy I brought it with me. I can't believe how durable it has been.

- We're in the process of making individual cards for the kids to give as goodbye gifts (with balloons and candy). It has been a task and a half getting all 60 something cards finished. I actually felt pretty emotional writing messages to some of the kids. I wish they could understand how wonderful they are as humans and how much of an impact they have had on my life.

So, about us leaving.
For those of you who are curious, here is our insanity flight path back to Canada. We have 24 hours and 15 mins IN AIR, so I don't even want to know how many travel hours total it will be. Our schedule is:

Gaborone (Bots) -> Johannesburg (South Africa) = 1 hour
Joburg -> Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) = 5 hours 30 mins
Addis -> Rome (Italy) = 6 hours
Rome -> Toronto = 9 hours 45 mins
Toronto -> Halifax = 2 hours

Following that, we have a two-week debrief starting on the 2nd at the Coady in Antigonish, and then our internship will be complete!
Pretty wild hey?

I don't know. I wish I had some super insightful things to say, but I'm still in the processing phase of everything. And let's be real, this blog already has enough cheese in it!

It's just crazy how things have turned out. The other day I was thinking back to other jobs I've had. When I was in high school, I literally had a job at Superstore as a price-checker on roller blades (heheh, 100% true story. I almost ran people over every single day). Way back then, I definitely did not have big international plans. I didn't have a CLUE what I wanted (other than a job that wasn't on wheels). Since then I've figured out so many things! And though I still have a zillion more things to sort out, this experience has certainly been the key to a lot of questions that didn't have answers.

This really has been an incredible adventure. I have experienced so much, I have grown so much. I've gained perspective and direction. My work with Stepping Stones has been so rewarding and worthwhile. It has been the best thing I've ever invested my time and energy into. I'm going to miss the kids terribly!

I have a feeling that the true impact of this won't sink in until I'm back.
I'd sum up these six months up in five words:

Powerful.

Challenging.

Impassioned.

Transformative.

Significant.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Wish me luck on my last few days. I'm sure I'll have some travel stories when I get back to Canada. I'm so excited to be back home!

OH MAN and to those of you who took the time to write me every few days, or even just one single time to say hello, THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have no idea how wonderful it was to have an inbox with lovely things to read in it! I'm eternally thankful!

Peace and love!
shilaleblanc@gmail.com

Shila