March already?!?!

So the start of this week I went on one of my services-Naledi Feeding. I thought I would tell you a bit more about it.
-Naledi is one of the most disadvantaged areas and the main one which gets aid, this is unfortunate for the other areas that also deserve the aid!
-We give food to 17 houses and it includes, sugar, bread,onions,tea,tomatos,flour,this maize thing that is very popular here, soap.
-Food is for old people, they have to be above 65 but the rest of the family rely on it too-little kids run up very smiley and are very grateful for food. This week we found out one of the women that we give food to passed away (she was 93) and so now we have the difficult decision as to who to give the food to. The whole family relies so much on the food but we cant keep giving to that family if there is no one over 65.
-3 years ago the only road which winds through Old Naledi was tarmaced
-Dulex painted the majority of the houses different colours so they aren't all grey concrete colour
-The only way they can get water is to walk to the various taps which are at the end of streets

I also went on another sevice. We went to a government primary school and helped the students with their homework. The classes are all really big so there were about 12 of us and and we each had about 5 kids we were helping! The children were all really smiley and friendly and really appreciated our help.

On Thursday it was Makgassa Service. This time, instead of helping the students read I was helping with computer skills. This is really basic stuff on Word Docs. I showed one student how to do Word Art and he gave the biggest smile, was so sweet.

In PE lessons this week we did basketball for the boys , netball for the girls and have now moved onto football for the boys (which they are very happy about) and basketball for the girls. I helped sort out some more medals-the ones the students won on the swimming trip which was last weekend. They were then given out in assembly with lots of cheering! Bruce has also given me a project-the Sports department is in charge of running a 'Health/Wellbeing Week'in term two so i am just starting to brainstorm ideas. Its going to involve a lot of activities which teach the kids about healthy eating, exercise etc.

We have had a few massive thunderstorms this week, Ultimate Frisbee was cancelled because of it. One with very loud thunder which lasted about 3 hours!
This Weekend:
-On Saturday Adjoa and I went to the Gaborone Museum (which i found out about due to my lonely planet book-nice work auntie Gill, Uncle Steve!). This was free (brill) and really good! It had the history of Botswana-for example did you know the first settlers that came to Botswana were in AD 200. Some of their hunting techniques include building a MASSIVE hole (this took months) and then creating a sort of fenced path and then sheperding a load of wild animals into the path and then they were forced to go down it (as they were surrounded by a fence on either side) leading them to the massive pit. This could get the tribe around 80 animals in one go. The museum was very empty and a little spooky as a lot of the lights were not working. but it was very fun nonetheless! Afterwards we walked through the craft market and i may have picked up some more goodies and then we had pizza for lunch (where we found out one of the deals on is buy 2 large pizzas and get 4 free, which is insanee!) That evening we played basketball on the courts and made a bet for biscuits, whoever could get a 3 pointer, free shot and lay up in first won the biscuits and i lost :( I will challenge her again and win!
-On Sunday, Tamara and I went to Riverwalk Mall, there was a really nice market there which we had a look round and then we went for lunch at braii place.

Now for a few random stories:
-Adjoa had her hair done.  This is when the attatch an extension to the root of your hair and then plait it to your natural hair. Alot of the girls have it done here. It took 3, 2 hours sessions so in total it took 6 hours!
-I learnt today (me and Tamara went to Braii Place for lunch-they do burgers and various other meat dishes)that its really common here for you to ask to take any food you cant finish home with you, like in the US. She was really shocked that we dont do it in the UK and i dont know why we dont, it makes a lot of sense!
- I forgot to say that when we were camping on the boarders trip one evening we all went to the heated swimming pool. There were quite a few white people in the pool but as soon as all the students from MaP turned up and got in, aka about 30 black kids,  they all got out. Now i dont know whether its because these people were going to leave anyway or they just thought it would get busy but a lot of the MaP students were saying that there is still a lot of racism in South Africa even if it isnt always obvious and they were certain that was the reason why. Which i thought was a little shocking.
-Naomi one of the Form 5s here has just qualified in the Youth Olympics, representing Botswana and I was chatting to her about it and she said how her swimming costume, to reduce resistance is 6 sizes smaller than her normal size!

The week thats coming up I am off campus. From Monday to Friday I am going on the form 1 trip with Tamara to Camp Konka is South Africa. It is like PGL, they do a lot of activities liek canoeing, kayaking etc. On Friday on the way home i am getting off the bus at a mall with the form 1 cricketers as there is a cricket tournament from Friday to Sunday which i am going to. They need a TA to stay at the mall with the students while we wait for the cricket bus to come by and pick us up and take us to the tournament. This weekend has been my last free weekend until week 12 aka my last weekend in Botswana before my tour, which is a little weird-its all going very fast! So next weekend is cricket, weekend after im hopefully going to Madikwe Game Reserve, weekend after is Basketball Trip and then the weekend after that is the long weekend when I am going camping. Then its the free weekend and then its the start of my safari tour!

Well i hope you all have fab weeks, i am looking forward to mine! I wont have any internet for a week so thats why I wont have replied to any emails anyone sends me.

J xx