A fun fair, a birthday party, and lots of learning!

Hey friends!

I hope everyone had a lovely, lovely weekend! It's Sunday night, the usual time I sit down and do a blog post, but I don't think I'll be able to post this until Tueday. I'm so used to not having internet now, it's going to be such a crazy thing to always be connected when I'm back!

Another week has passed, and as per usual, it was anything but boring! There's lots of new stuff happening these days!

So, the low down at work these days:

- We're now waiting for approval for the research proposal. Fingers crossed, we want to get the interviews going ASAP! It feels pretty great to have the proposal completed- it was a little mind-numbing for a while there

- Our lovely friend Julia has returned to Utah! We're SO sad to see her go, where did the month go?! Before she left, she gave us a presentation on the psychosocial assessments she has been doing, and MAN, she had some SUPER interesting stuff to tell us. She was assessing our kids on a TON of factors, measuring everything from cognitive ability to psychological wellbeing to spatial awareness to depression to anxiety to perceived control and support. It was fantastic to know that the majority of the kids feel safe and cared for at Stepping Stones www.steppingstonesintl.org), but it was also heartbreaking to hear that for some of them, Stepping Stones is the ONLY place they feel safe and cared for. Julia also spent a lot of time highlighting the challenges these kids face when it comes to simple tasks like focusing, and urged us to reconsider the way that we understand the kids who misbehave. It's easy to sum it up as a cry for attention, but she was explaining that it's often deeper than that. For some of the kids, it's a much more desirable option to act out than it is to be singled out as the kid who doesn't know HOW to do an activity. When certain kids have cognitive challenges, it's very embarrassing and shameful to be unable to complete the tasks at hand. Her presentation ROCKED and it's powerful that we now know the individual strengths and challenges of each kid. She also equipped us with all kinds of creative ways to improve our teaching methods. It was AWESOME! Thanks Julia, you rock!

Trying to walk the line using binoculars- an activity to demonstrate the cognitive challenges our kids may experience

 - I had another girls talk, although it ended up being mixed gender at the last second. I was preparing for a gender segregated session, but right before the session we realized we were missing a projector so I had to quickly readjust. I spent the first 20 minutes with just the girls so we could finish the section on periods. I brought in a pad and a tampon to pass around, and everyone was SUPER curious, especially the younger girls. They had TONS of questions, so it was excellent to see that they were engaged and wanting to learn. Then, the boys joined us, and we talked about healthy versus unhealthy relationships, the concept of deal breakers, abuse, and relationships/dating in general. I was pleasantly surprised with how well everyone listened and the activities I planned went over smoothly. Next session: contraceptives, consent, and sex! It's daunting not because of the content, but because of how important it is to talk about it all in a healthy way. The good news is, I think I'm establishing myself as someone that they can come to with ANY questions.

A girl's talk session in action

- On Friday we had a fun fair and it was SOOOOOO AWESOME! There were six teams and six stations, tons of prizes, a HUGE relay race, and then a wonderful meal for the kids. The meal was really really special. The staff served the kids at actual tables, and they got to use a fork and a knife, and real plates and cups instead of their usual plastic dishes. The kids were simply BEAMING by the end of the day! It was exhausting, but a TOTAL blast! And we even got off earlier than usual! 

Luckymore is one of SSI's success stories. He was a leadership
participant and Stepping Stones really fostered his musical
talent so that he went on to win My African Dream, a televised
talent competition in Africa. He is teaching the kids a  new song
he is working on. I'll post it when it's finished!

One of the fun fair stations- eating apples on string without touching
them, and then quickly categorizing items.

Another station: one person mimes actions, the person seated
relays the actions to the third

This was my super-cool station. Each team member had a
string tied to an elastic. The group had to work together to
assemble and build a tower using only the elastic.

Enthusiastically running the show

The final piece!

A huge cheer off to determine who got to have tea break first

African skies are gorgeous!

The final relay!

Passing the ball using their feet

Go go go!!!

The winners!!!

Luckymore showcasing the new song

What a special meal! Seated at tables, with cutlery and real dishes! 

- A lovely WUSC volunteer from Ottawa came to SSI, and we ran a yoga class with the kids! What a dream come true! And they were surprisingly receptive to all of it. I really hope I can do more yoga with them, it has been such an important thing for me here and I'm sure it could help them with their trouble focusing.

Running a yoga session with the kiddies! 

Yogi masters!

A Botswana yogini in the making!

- Another SUPER exciting thing this week was getting training to do literacy assessments!!!!! This sounds drab, but for me it's literally a dream come true. When I initially started doing the special education reading, I was SO overwhelmed by it all and didn't even know where to start. Now, with these relatively quick assessments, I'm able to know EXACTLY what reading level my kids are at, and exactly what areas we need to focus on. The assessments are pretty straightforward. We get the kids to read passages that get increasingly more difficult. As they read, we time them and mark for the types of errors they make, and based on a criteria list we place them at specific reading levels. I knew my readers had difficulties, but it was still a little shocking to see that kids in grade 9 are reading at a grade 2 level. I find this the OPPOSITE of discouraging though- it's motivating! Everyone starts somewhere, and now that I have way more structure with everything, our reading sessions will be as effective as possible. Wooooo!!! I'll have these kids reading in no time!

Cutting these took ten million hours, but I have SO MANY new flashcards and activities! 

Aaaaaand, as for my random life outside of SSI:

- Guys. My quality of life has gone up DUHHHH RASTICALLY!!!!!!!! Kate and I managed to fix the tub, and we now have a handheld SHOWER HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like, WOW my life is so much better! The pressure is low, and it doesn’t compare to Canadian showers, but oh my GOD I was so happy after I washed my hair with it. I was literally grinning for a good hour. What an improvement!!! Hygiene has been such a challenge, so this is really really exciting. To be able to easily rinse my body?! Say hello to a much less greasy Shila!

- There are these two goats we see wandering around almost everyday on the way to and from work. This week, we saw one of the goats PLAYING with a dog!!! They were pals!!! It was SO cute. The dog was super adorable, pawing the goat and jumping all over the place. The goat was jumping and being really precious. Who knew goats and dogs could be BFFs?

- Botswana can openers: SO scary. Basically a knife. I did open my veggie curry though, and lived to tell the tale

- Our Saturday was SOOO random! We were invited by a co-worker to her two year old's birthday party in her local village of Mmangkodi. After some scheduling difficulties and a VERY sketchy combi ride, we met another SSI staff in the capital and got on the bus to Mmangkodi. We drove an hour and half, and it was SO neat to see RURAL rural Botswana. We got off the bus in a tiny, tiny town, and started walking, and I'm not being dramatic at all when I say that we were in the middle of NOWHERE. We walked through a field, over a little hill, there was NOTHING around us. Our co worker was like Hmmm…. I hope I know where it is…… I was a liiiiiiiittle concerned. But then! We hit some small houses, and heard some music, and all of a sudden we saw the party, and it was FULL ON! Like, in the middle of NOWHERE was this HUGE bash! There was a blow up jumping castle for kids, tents, and even a DJ! It was packed, there were lots of familiar faces from work, and it was a lovely lovely thing all around. We tried traditional beer- YUCK! It was a sickly grey colour, smelled bad, and tasted even worse. Apparently only "traditionals" like traditional beer. It was gross. The dancing scene was the best part for sure! Who knew, even in the bush there can be some epic birthday parties! 

On our way to the birthday party. It seemed like we were
walking aimlessly into the bush.

Finally! Houses!

The precious birthday girl! She was TERRIFIED of white people. Absolutely terrified! 

These two kids were seriously dance stars. SO awesome! Work it!

A jumping castle!!!

A Stepping Stones dance partayyyy

Everyone is good at dancing- except us hahaha

Probably not the best picture in the world, BUT, the
Stepping Stones crew!

- On a hitch back to Mochudi I was listening to the radio, and laughed to myself when the weather report was simply "Tomorrow will be cloudy and cold"

- We got a hand blender and I can make smoothies!!!!!!!! SO EXCITING! Now, to find some stuff to put in them. My first smoothie was pretty drab. If only berries were accessible here! Smoothies are the best though, I'm so happy I can blend stuff! 

Good morning! I made a smoothie!!!

Sooooooooo that was my week! I have a conference tomorrow and probably Tuesday, but I'll write about that next time.

Send me your thoughts!

shilaleblanc@gmail.com

Peace and love!

Shila 

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.