Mogobane

Hello! Sorry it has been a while since my last post, but I've been staying in a village called Mogobone (population around 2500 people) for the past week and it has been far from any source of internet. Living in this village has been quite an experience. I am staying with a very kind host family- my mother is in her 70's and my father in his 80's. Much of their family lives in the village, or at least nearby so I have been constantly surrounded by people. The younger Batswana can speak some English, but my parents can barely speak a sentence. This has been quite challenging. We mostly communicate through gestures and smiles- sometimes I will repeat what they are saying in hopes that they can better clarify, but they usually just laugh and walk away. The food is unfortuneately not very good here, although I have learned how to deal with it increasingly better. Sour porriage is definitely my least favorite, it tastes very much like cream of wheat made with milk that has gone bad. Otherwise I'll get corn maize with vegetables drenched in oil and bread. One dinner I had was a cold can of baked beans. I can say that I have come to love Red Bush tea- you all should try it is you can, its very good. My mother usually wakes me up around 6:00AM for my 9:00AM which I am usually not too pleased about. They are pretty insistant about batheing 2 times a day here which is quite a task. Sometimes they give me a big bin full of boiling hot water and sometimes I can use a tub to wash myself off. The people in the village seemed very amuzed that we are living there. The kids will come and crowd us like we are celebrities, saying things such as "how are you" and "what is your name," which I am assuming is the only English they know. My classmates and I were once gathered for class and a huge group of them came by and starred at us. I took out my camera because they looked adorable and before you know it they all ran up to me and started making crazy supermodel poses. When tried to get in the picture with them they froze with alarm as if a wild animal had walked up to them. Such a wild experience. While I am frustrated that life moves so slowly here, they do watch some hilarious soap operas that I have actually started getting into. Its quite a bonding experience. The most frustrating part about living in the village is being overly pressured to only speak Setswana. When I get over that however, I am having quite an experience in this village. Hopefully my language skills will improve as I take more intensive Setswana classes. Miss you all!