Old Posts!

So nothing new has really happened recently. It’s been overcast and slightly rainy all week, which has been awesome! Haha it’s nice to have a few days off from the hot hot sun! We received back our first Setswana exams (94!).. the whole class did really well. I was proud of us.

We’ve started counting the days a little bit more now that its getting closer to April. But really trying hard not to! This weekend we are distracting ourselves a little with an excursion to Victoria Falls. We’ll be leaving Thursday night on an overnight train to Francistown, and from there taking a bus to Kasane in the north of Botswana. Unfortunately backpackers lodges are not allowed in the country, because the government prefers low impact-high cost tourism.. good for the environment, bad for us. So we’ll be staying in a hotel in Kasane, and traveling to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for the day on Saturday with a guide. It’s important for us to have a guide, as Zimbabwe isn’t doing so fabulously right now, but we also don’t plan on traveling too much into the country. It’ll be interesting to drive through though. A good friend of ours recently went traveling through Zim and was saying how it looks really modern for the 1970’s or so, but since then has stagnated, and the shelves of the grocery store are bare. They don’t accept Zimbabwean currency anymore, so we have to trade our Pula in for U.S. dollars. It will be weird to use them again! Hopefully I won’t need to many, just for a visa, and possibly to bribe police haha. Unfortunately most of the money from the visa’s etc. goes directly into Robert Mugabe’s pocket. With the recent “accident” involving the prime minister and his wife, there is a lot of unrest there. If you use American Dollars to pay for something, you may get your change in Pula, Euros, anything. Fortunately though I won’t be spending much, as the markets in Zim welcome American clothing to barter for their goods, and I can very easily trade some of my t-shirts for a lot of souvenirs!


In other news getting Zinzi (who we now believe to be male…) home has been a huge hassle. The issue is that NO businesses answer their phones, and when I finally got through to a person, they had no idea what the airlines policy on animals was. Very frustrating to say the least, as I watched my cell phone minutes vanish quickly with all these calls. My sister, and Jon’s mom have been helping organize things on the United States side, which is proving to have much better telephone service. So hopefully things get sorted out quickly! The kitten has really come into his own and had such a personality now. After his eye drops we have discovered he has huge eyes, and is completely adorable. He spends most of his time playing with toys Jon and I have created for him, and as a African kitten he’s very resourceful. He uses a balled up receipt as a ball and toilet paper rolls keep him occupied. We have several cardboard boxes, one which he uses for scratching, and it has a small rug in it he also sharpens his claws on occasionally. Which is unnecessary cause his claws are very very sharp, and everyone that meets him has scratches to prove it. He’s still just getting used to himself though, so hopefully he realizes claws are unnecessary most of the time. I’ll put up new pictures soon!

Today.. it is April! The 5th to be exact. And we are now officially counting the days til we get home!! It’s been awesome here, but we’re ready for some real food (Chinese buffet!!!!!). And it’s going to be really nice to see my family again! This is the longest I have ever been away. It hasn’t been as hard because Jon is here with me, but its still too long to go without seeing your own family. Especially with all the health problems, accidents, and chaos ensuing at home.. its hard not to be there! So today, Jon awoke to no water in his dorm.. I checked mine, and also no water. None of the dormitories have had water all day. I never realized how dependent I was on running water.. it’s almost noon and I have yet to shower or brush my teeth!! I have been checking every half hour or so, but nothing yet. A bunch of us are going to the pool here in a few minutes to use their locker room. Hopefully there is water there! A large group of students here actually spent a week living in a village about 40 minutes away from campus. Most had no running water or electricity. If you want to do dishes you have to take water from outside and bring it inside to boil. I was wondering why most people here don’t shower but use the bathtub.. that’s why, t hey don’t have showers at home.