Sunday was supposed to be rest day. That meant we got approx. 2 hours of free time. Church was amazing. It's something I will look forward to every week, actually. It lasts anywhere between 2 and 3 hours; yesterday it was 2 1/2 hours long. Lots of worship (most of it was in Setswana), a great sermon by Pastor Jerry, and a lot of love from the congregation. Hugs everywhere! I loved it. We wanted to go out for lunch afterwards but quickly discovered that would consume 1/2 of our food budget for the entire week, so we went grocery shopping instead. Oofta, that's going to be a project every week.
Today was our first day in placement shadowing. I was designated to be the Reader and was supposed to help the kids ages 7-12 with reading. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of my time in the library fixing books. I was able to get a lot of time in with the 7 year olds, but definitely not enough personal interaction for what I need. I LOVE the kids at OIS, though. Love them. They just adore having interns around, so I couldn't walk more than 5 feet before feeling someone wrap their arms around my waist or grab my hands. At one point, I had 5 different kids holding onto me while we were walking to the playground. Oh, the playground. I loved the playground. Spent the entire break (30 mins) pushing kids on the swings. The little kids (ages 3-5) were out there the same time as my 7 yr-olds, and they would just come running up to me asking for hugs or to be held. The girls were swinging and playing jump rope while the boys were wrestling behind me. All of a sudden I felt someone hug my waist from behind, so I turned around and it was one of the boys. He was excited to show me his scars, so then all the boys came over to show me theirs as well. I love kids. They crack me up. I don't think I want my permanent placement to be in this position, but I don't want to lose connection with the children. We'll see what happens. I overheard my kids saying that they needed to be really nice to me so that I would stay, then (actual quote from one of the Indian children) "Let us give her some of our food so that she feels welcome. That will help!" Then he gave me his pretzel, a girl gave me her orange, and another girl gave me some gum. Again, I love these kids.
Tonight we had dinner over at Miss Pat's house. So much good food. We all overate and now all feel sick. It was the best meal we've had so far, in my opinion.
Well, tomorrow is another long day. I think I've had an hour of free time total since I got up at 5:30am. Gotta get good sleep tonight.
I will definitely take pictures with the children, but today wasn't an appropriate time to do so. When it is, I will post ASAP. Batswana kids are pretty much the cutest ones alive. For real. Oh, cute story. I was saying "howdy" to a few of the kids until I noticed that they were responding with "I'm fine, thank you, how are you?" I then explained that howdy is another way to say hello, and little Thotha looked at me carefully..."oh, ok. (smile) How do YOU say 'thank you'?"
So cute!!
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