More lions!

My friend Ross holding up the lions's leftovers. His quote, "it touched my leg. The spinal cord touched my leg!"

So beautiful!

Lions!!

Doesn't she look so cute when she's asleep!

Enjoying her afternoon snack.

I hope this conveys how scared I was at times!

Safari: Hippos and Giraffes

They may not look like much but we were warned not to get too close to the water for fear of agitating them.

Pretending that a hippo just attacked someone. Paco is ready to defend us with his sling shot.

New catchphrase coined by my friend: you are as awkward as a giraffe running. They really do look hilarious when they run!

Safari: Elephants

I promise this is not my face super-imposed over an elephant.

While driving back to our campsite, we came across another group of elephants. How lucky!

Safari! Our campsite

My friend Heidi holding up an elephant bone that was in our campsite.

Home sweet home. For 2 nights. Apparently it looked inviting to hyenas and baboons. Luckily, none of our stuff was stolen.

Our safari truck!

Sunrise at our campsite.

Enjoying our first night in the bush!

My friend Paco attempting to learn how to make bricks. He swears he's going to build something at his house with them. We'll see...

This shoe is called a grasshopper. The kids get a kick out of me telling them that we don't have these shoes in the states and to us a grasshopper is just an insect. Here, these are the cool shoes to have. They are really expensive (I think they cost about $60 US) so I'm not surprised when many students don't have them but all want them.

Me climbing a termite mound.

My cross-cultural decorations in our staff room at school. I also baked sugar cookies (that I died black and orange) and made orange rice krispy treats. I was a big hit that day. Hopefully they'll remember the cookies when I ask for their help in some of my projects!

A huge baobob tree.

Just a normal month in Botswana...

My friend Mary next to an ostrich farm. I'm surprised she's smiling. Her and I just got out of a truck where 7 adults were crammed into the back of a covered pickup for a 2+ hour ride on really horrible roads. The worst part was finding out that we drove that far to see ostriches!

Form 1 students writing letters to their American penpals! They were SO happy to do this!

A lovely bug that I ran into on my way to school one morning. I hope I never see one of these in my house. Although, I guess I'd take this over a snake.

A picture of our staff room here at school. This is where I'm sitting when I'm writing these emails to you!

Kids at the Youth Forum checking out the world map. It was a great activity to test them on their geography skills!

Language week and Thanksgiving in Maun

Our beautiful Thanksgiving day spread! Please note the boxed wine. Right next to the water filter, of course.

Our family portrait.

Learning Setswana- for about 6 hours a day. This was one of the lucky days where my class (of 3 other volunteers) got to be inside next to the fan instead of sitting outside. The outside class was nice in the morning when it was a little cool, but as the day went on we were constantly moving our chairs, chasing the shade.

One night we decided to go out for burgers! This is at a backpackers spot on the river. Even though the burgers looked delicious, I couldn't pass up a chance for a good old fashioned veggie burger.

Life at Moruakgomo

Students at morning assembly. We have this full school assembly on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesday mornings the students have assembly only with their houses. It's so Harry Potter-like! Except instead of Griffindor we have the Lion, Cheetah and Tiger Houses (I don't know why they have a tiger house since there aren't tigers in Botswana, but whatever).

A shot of the Home Economics lab supply room.

Home Economics lab. Thought mom would appreciate that.

Another shot of morning assembly. The students are bowing their headsand in prayer (which also happens every morning). Just before this they were singing.

Prep for the Form 3 Party

Some Form 3 boys and I stoking the fires to cook rice and chicken.

My counterpart- the Guidance and Counselling teacher. Her name is Didimalo Lekaukau.

A science teacher cooking in the school kitchen.

The school librarian dishing up the rice.

Checking on the meat.

Independence Day

These trees are everywhere and have scary toothpick-like razors on them. They hurt a lot when they scrap you, which happened a lot to me on Independence Day.

This is my trying to learn the dance moves. About 12 teachers and I went to Bokaa Dam (about 2 hours from my school). You can see the nice water behind us. It looked like a big lake. I wasn't tempted to swim because of all the cow manure and grazing animals, but it still looked refreshing.

Our setup by the dam.

Teachers braaiing meat. Lots and lots of meat.

This is a great example of a donkey cart. Some, like this one, are made from the backs of pickup trucks. Some are actual carts though. I love that it has HUMMER written on the side.