Stick Shifts and Safety Belts...

Well today was the big day! I learned how to drive a stick shift in Africa! Beat that. I was the only one in the group who had never driven stick shift before, so I was really nervous, but it went really well. It's very fun! I'm going to have a few more practice sessions before I am ready to really take on the African roads, but I think I'll be just fine. We drive on the opposite side of the road here, which I am guessing you can tell from this picture...

Anyway, the training we all went through for the driving took up most of our morning, and then we had our first work project day. We're going to be fixing up our house quite a bit over the next few months. First step: fixing the front door. We changed the 3 locks, which normally should have taken us about 10 minutes, but because of our lack of tools it took an hour. Oy. Patience. I am learning patience. Dietra and I also have a screen on our window now! We can sleep with our window open tonight...this is pretty exciting. It's nice to be the girl sometimes, because then we get stuff before the guys :)

Tonight we went to our first church service at All Nations Village Church, which is the Love Botswana church. I'll take pictures of that place sometime. It was pretty cool to have praise and worship and a Bible study with the Batswana.

Tomorrow we get to have our culture study day! One of the nationals on staff, Zhie, is going to take us around town and to some special restaurants and museums, etc. so that we have a better understanding of the history and culture of Maun. We're all really excited for it. That's supposed to last 6 hours, but at the pace things go around here, it will probably take closer to 8.

Oh, some people have asked about what would be a good time to call. While I'm in orientation, I would say call between 8:00-11:00p (Botswana time, which is 7 hours ahead of CST). After orientation is up, I think that between 6:00-10:00 would be better. Also, one more care package request: liquid hand soap. It is too expensive here!! And, if you are feeling compassionate, we need some tennis balls to cut in half. The roommates have discovered that we need to "Ashley proof" the house, and that includes covering the sharp edges of our spiral staircase.

I posted some more pictures! Hope you're all doing well.