Shila Travels: Yoga, rain, museums, braai, open mic

Eeeeeeek! I go home in 12 days!

It's all a lot to take in. My emotions are all over the map!

This past week FLEW by, there were a lot of things on the go!

This week at work:

- On Tuesday I ran another yoga session with the kids. I wasn't prepared (no mat, sports bra, nothing) but it ended up working out really well regardless. The kids have done enough yoga with Milena and I that they're starting to know the poses. It was awesome!

- In a kind of hilarious moment of delegation, I was asked to write a letter to the president! The MenCare program is putting together a documentary to celebrate fatherhood in Botswana (International Men's Day is November 19th), and wants to interview the president about his experience with his own father. It seemed pretty funny to me that they got the random Canadian to write the request. Hopefully he'll be persuaded by my words and agree to the interview!

- The European Union came for a visit on Friday as they're about to fund a program we're piloting that focuses on street-involved youth. Part of their visit was to see some of the work we do at Stepping Stones International (www.steppingstonesintl.org), so a colleague and I did a quick run down of the literacy program we've been implementing. It was pretty great to showcase some of the incredible progress we've made. I'm such an enthusiastic supporter of the sessions we do! I got one of my readers to do a quick demo for them and he did exceptionally well considering he had a dozen people watching him intently. I was proud :)

- The first draft of the fatherhood research is completed!!!!!!!!!! It's a good 60 pages at the moment, and it feels SO good to have the brunt of the writing done! We only have one week to incorporate all the edits and finalize the study, so it's going to be a push, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Some of our findings are SUPER interesting. I just wish I had more time to do some polishing, but considering I had only two months to throw it together, I'll take it. More to come when it's done next week!

As for my life outside of work:

- I've already written extensively about the heat, so this week I'll leave you with a mere two words on the subject:

Scorching. Oppressive.

- Frozen water bottles have proven to be super useful. They're great for cold drinking water, for a cooling pack, and especially to snuggle with when sleeping. They have really improved my quality of life!

- We bought watermelon! It was a splurge, roughly 5.50CDN, and probably the most labor-intensive thing ever to get back to our place, but it was DEEELICIOUS!

- On Saturday we had a super fun (although way too hot) time adventuring around the village. We visited our Botswana grandmother, the woman we lived with for a month, and then Kemelo, Kate and I went to check out the one museum in Mochudi. We've been meaning to go for aaaages.

It ended up being kiiiind of a gong show. The museum, which was originally a school that opened in 1921, is on the top of a mountain (a big hill?) overlooking the entire village. Apparently the chief (or their family or something) of the bagKatla tribe, the main tribe here, lives on the road leading to the museum, and got mad that the through-traffic was making noise, so they made the road private access only. At first we were told we had to climb up the mountain to get to the museum, which was SO not going to happen in this heat. Then we were told we could call and get permission to drive up if we called the chief, but as if we had the chief on speed dial! We ended up taking a cab halfway up the mountain, took path through the woods, walked through a little neighbourhood, climbed a stairwell, and finally made it to the museum. Of course, the museum was closed. But it was totally worth the trek because the view was amazing! We climbed a cool tree, and had fun checking out the huge rocks.

- The cockroaches have been really bad lately. I hate hate hate hate hate them. This week, I was showering when a cockroach appeared on the curtain right beside me. Of course I jumped out of the tub, ran to the corner of the bathroom, tried to cover myself, and yelled for the girls to save me. I'd like to formally thank Milena and Kate for being so willing to kill these things for me- I don't know what I'd do without you two! Milena also gets a golden medal of bravery for killing a cockroach with only a rubber glove and some toilet paper. Girl, you are a bug-killing machine, and your bravery is something else. I canttttttttt wait to sleep peacefully in Canada.

- Although it's rainy season in Bots, it has been unusually dry lately. Luckily this week there were a few bouts of rain. On Saturday night, Kate and I went to Gabs to do a bit of shopping and grab dinner, and all of a sudden it started POURING! There was thunder, lightning, and soooo much rain! It was beautiful! We finished everything by around 7, and the rain had mostly passed, so we figured we should hurry and get a hitch back. Sure enough, after about five minutes of standing on the side of the highway, it started raining cats and dogs! It was a full on rain, wind, and sandstorm! There was a huge transfer truck parked on the side of the road, so we (and a bunch of other men trying to get a hitch) ran to it for a bit of protection from the weather. In a short amount of time, we were DRENCHED from head to toe, and NO ONE was stopping for us (probably because we looked like drowned rats). It ended up taking us over 30 minutes to get a hitch, and by the time a woman picked us up we were completely soaked. I have to say, it felt AMAAAAZING! So so so refreshing.

- Sunday was an entertaining day. We hitched to Gabs and met some friends at Mountain Valley, this neat little bar/braai spot outside of the city. We've done a surprisingly small amount of braaiing here (it's basically like communal BBQing and it's HUGELY popular), so it was super fun to get some meat and cook it up. We had some drinks, fed some stray dogs, and enjoyed the music and scenery. Following that, we went to another spot for some live music, and I somehow got roped into open mic. For the record, in Canada I do a lot of open mic, I really enjoy it, and I always do a decent job. Usually I'll sing with someone else playing acoustic, but sometimes I'll play and sing on my own. Anyway… it has been almost an entire 6 months without me even TOUCHING a guitar, so perhaps it hindsight it wasn't the best decision to agree to an on-the-spot performance. It was the worst musical performance of my existence! Maybe it was the drinks, maybe it was the six months of no practice, maybe it was the electric guitar and not an acoustic one, but I literally wasn't even able to finish a song!!! I tried to play it cool, but after many failed attempts at making music, I cut my losses and let the original guys get the show back on track. Thank god the bar was basically empty! It was mortifying at the time, but suuuuuper hilarious the next day. I can't believe that even happened!! Ten gold stars to Kate for being the most supportive human ever, literally cheering for me despite my useless guitar ramblings. Maura and I are already planning our open mic when we're at debrief, so I guess that will be my redemption. At least I get an E for effort. Right guys?! Right?!

Soooooooooo.

I feel like I should have insightful things to say, what with my time coming to an end and all, but I don't have the capacity for it at the moment. Hopefully next week I'll have some thoughts, but honestly, I'm still avoiding the whole thing.

Happy week!

Peace and love!

shilaleblanc@gmail.com

Shila

Yogaaaaa yoga yoga

Let's stretch!

No mat, no sports bra, no problem!

Little savasana angels :)

My literacy person-in-training took this pic of O and I in action. I'm seriously going to miss this kid!

A new shaded area SSI added to the side of the building. Now the kids can have sessions outside without totally melting.

Some artwork the kids did.

I'm way out of touch with our garden, but it seems to be doing really well!

Botho got caught in the downpour :)

Rain! Thank god!

This guy did an amazing reading demo for people visiting from the EU. Proud of this reader!

Prayer before dinner.

Hey kids!

Everything is getting green, and flowers are blooming. It's lovely!

This is in our yard. Gorgeous or what!

This is the mountain we climbed a while ago. I hope to get up one more time before we go!

Watermelonnnnnnnn!!! SO GOOD!

Eating it in massive hunks.

Remember this little guy? He used to live with us way back in our first month. When we visited our Bots grandmother, we were soooo looking forward to seeing him, but he was PASSED OUT sleeping on the floor, so tired that he didnt even wake when we got there. We were sad we couldnt play with him, but how precious is that!