Week 4

This week started with yet another trip to the clinic! The Doctor wanted to check up on me after I am allergic to Kang so off me and Faye Tray trotted at 10am promising Mr T we would be back before lunch to sort out lessons. 3 hours later we were still waiting in the que; it turns out the elderly women of Kang are right old nobbers who were pretending to help us out with clinic decorum and instead were just screwing us over! It wasn’t until a girl from Matsha came and sat next to me and had an argument with the old people that we finaly got in; only for the doctor to say I am fine! However he did try and prescribe me suncreme for my epic burn - fairly embarassing but luckily he decided I could handle sun burn without medical intervention ..... it did take some convincing though! 

Monday was made a hell of a lot better after the disaster of the clinic WE GOT PUPPIES!!!  Simon; a teacher at Moutang’s dog had a gazillion puppies and after Esther and Emma spent a week convincing him he gave us two for free. We have to give them back before we leave but thats a technicality! We called them Biggie and Nala and they are just the cutest. They are clearly going to be the most looked after dogs in Kang.

Tuesday we worked at Moutang again but today Mr T was on duty at lunch time so we had to help him out with dutys. Most of the students at the schools here board as this is a “hard to reach area”, so all students get all their meals at school. Tea break was a chunk of bread and the worlds worst tasteing juice - think banana flavoured medicine from childhood! We helped give out the food to the kids then the matron insisted we stay for food afterwards, in fairness they did put peanut butter on our bread so it was a bit nicer but the drink is horrific! This was the first time we have seen Botswana discipline in action. We got told at Matsha that if the students use their books for anything other than the set subject they got whipped but didn’t really believe it. However today Mr T gave a boy ‘3 sweets’ (3 lashes of the whip!) in front of us! It was horrible but neither the kid nor Mr T seemed faised by it. 

If you’ve been reading my blog you will have heard about how boring the events and meetings are around here. Today we naively agreeed to go to a Khotla meeting. (The Khotla is like the village hall where the leaders meet to make decisions and have meetings, the meetings are open to everyone hence why we went). Yet again it went on forever in Setswana so we snuck out and went to Moutang for a meeting with the head to discuss our programmes.  Afterwards, we spent the afternoon teaching Mr T sayings such as ‘your bang tidy’ and ‘smash your back doors in’.... Video’s will follow (it’s amazing).

Thursday we were back at Matsha and had to make mind maps with the students about what kind of topics they want to learn about - some great ones included beastiality, murder and prostitution! 

Friday we woke up super early to get the bus to Gab’s to visit the guys who are staying there.  It was Samira’s birthday in the week so we had a bit of a party at the guest house then went to a club, then went onto the nicest house in the world for an after party. Saturday was hangover central!!! After spending the morning moaning about being swiney we finally mustered the energy to hike to game city to buy shampoo; suprisingly in Kang white hair shampoo is hard to come by! I’ve no idea why I never though of this before I came but its all for afro hair! So we spent like 30pula on a cab to the shops then as we walked out of the car they all closed! It was devastating to say the least... so we went home and got Nandos. On sunday we basically spent the day watching come dine with me and variou shiz on MTV. We did help B (Wairumu’s son) write his personal statement for university. He is the most inspirational person I have ever met, he has made so much of his life after a horrible childhood and really shows what you can achieve if you are given a chance. In a nutshell he grew up on the streets and didn’t start school until he has 13, passed primary school in 3 years and has now been given a full scholarship by the Botswana government to any university in the world. He is so grounded and kind and if there were more people like him in the world it would most deffinatley be a better place.