Dumelang! (that is Setswana for hello)
I have survivied my first week in Gaborone, Botswana. I have not gone to the rural village yet; that will be next week. This past week I moved in with my host family. My host mom works for a private newspaper, and she has a 10 year old son named Azeli (I am not sure of the spelling). There is also a lady we call Auntie, who lives with us. She has a 15 month year old daughter named Julia, and she does all of the cooking and cleaning in the house. The house is quite different from what I am used to. There is no hot running water, so we have to warm water to bathe. I have almost gotten used to bathing from a bucket. :) They also don't have appliances like a dish washer or washing machine, so we do everything by hand. The food is pretty good, but it has taken a while to get used to some things. The staples are sorghum, millet, and porriage made with sour milk. They also eat alot of canned fish. The other day I had cow stomach, which I would gladly eat over the fish.
Classes started this week, and don't seem like they will be difficult. It mostly seems to be busy work, which might be hard to do because of my limited internet access. I only have internet at school right now, but I am trying to find close internet cafes. Everyday I take a combi, which is a 15 passenger van, to the University of Botswana, and I have to leave UB by 4 pm to get home before dark (it is very dangerous to walk after dark). I have an internship at the Baylor Clinic (set up by the Baylor College of Medicine), which supplies HIV/AIDS treatment. I will be working on a project to allow rural clinics to accurately measure the medication given to children, and a project where I will get to photograph patients and doctors.
I promise to post pictures as soon as I can get internet on my own computer.