Adventures in Botswana: Finishing Up Last Week and Trying to Move onto This One

It's time to finish telling you about last week. Unfortunately, I didn't write anything down to help me remember what happened, so hopefully looking through some pictures will jog my memory.
Thursday was a pretty busy day! No pictures from it, so here's hoping I remember what went down. That morning I was at my placement as usual- nothing too exciting happened that day. The kids were cute, funny, etc...same old, same old :)
That afternoon we had set aside time to hang out one last time as an internship team; I had to skip out of the first part of the hangout to get some pictures printed for a card we were making for Suhail, Farras and Amir (the kids who are moving to Gabs). The rest of the group went over to Mma Sibongile's house to say goodbye to her and her family. We had gone and spent a day at her house at the beginning of the internship (she was on staff at LBOM for many years and is Kevin and Sarah's "African Momma"). The group had a fun little surprise waiting for them when they arrived. One thing you should know is that it was an insanely hot day; sickeningly hot. When they drove up, they were greeted by topless women :) I wish I had been there, just to see the expressions on the guys' faces. They were horrified. Sarah and Dietra got out of the car to go find Mma, who turned out to be laying on the floor of her house, naked. It really was that hot. So, they said a quick hello and goodbye and told them we'd be back when the entire group was there. About 30 minutes later, and big storm came through. I was running from our house over to Brenda's and a tree branch fell to the ground about 10 feet in front of me; I was so thankful that I hadn't left the house 3 seconds earlier. That could have been bad! We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon playing Monopoly (I HATE that game. Stupid game) and drinking frozen coffees and hot chocolates. Yum! Right after that, Brenda had the interns over for one last dinner, then it was time for church. The storm that had been raging that day knocked the church tent down; the maintenance men spent hours frantically putting it back up, but there were rips and holes everywhere. After church, I was off to the school Christmas party! That was a very fun night over at Ms Rhonda's house. Ms Rhonda is the school principal; I adore her! We finally got home between 11p-12a and I collapsed into bed.

Friday. Oh, Friday was a tough one for me. It was the last day of school for the year, which meant it would be the last time I would ever see Suhail and Amir. Fortunately, they needed me to ride the bus, so I got a little extra time with them. I had my camera along, so I let the kids take some pictures:

"Whoops, SuSu, I wasn't looking. Let's take another"

Punk.

Darren and Michael (one of the standard 3 boys)

Oh, cute story about the bus ride. Whenever I ride the bus and Darren sees me for the first time, he absolutely loses it. He gets the biggest grin on his face and basically just starts screaming out of excitement. Most days he'll get a case of the giggles that lasts a few minutes as well. On this day, though, he caught the giggles so badly that he laughed until he cried. I have never seen a 3 year old laugh while wiping away his tears! It really was one of the cutest things I have ever witnessed. I wish I had it on video; the sound of his giggles are just too cute. Oh, speaking of "too cute"- I apparently say that a lot. Mmapula was doing my hair the other day and kept saying over and over again, "Oh this is just too cute. Miss Ash, it really is just too cute." Ok, back to the last day of school!

The last day was hardly a day at all; we had chapel at 9 and then school was out by 10am. Hardly anyone even showed up! I think that 8 out of my 22 kids were there...but let's be honest; all my favorites were there, so I was ok with it. I brought in a bag of candy that Brittnie had sent me from the states for the kids. I told them that this candy came from a friend in America, and I gave them each a couple of pieces. All of the kids were saying "Thank you Miss Ashley" until we get to Suhail. What does he shout out? "THANK YOU AMERICA!!!" I'm gonna miss that fool.

The kids were so sweet that day; I got my first Christmas gift from a student! Jua brought me lotion :) Not only that, but Leruo remembered that I love plums, so he brought me a plum! After seeing that, Darren wanted to give me a cookie, but it took so long for me to get to him that he had already put the cookie in his own mouth. He still really wanted me to have it, so he took it out and handed it to me and told me to eat it. So I did. Really, you can't say no to that face. And finally...my Prince. Prince is one of my absolute favorites in the world. All term long, he would come to me every day with his hand held out, saying "Miss, where is my sweetie?" or he would ask for my watch or my water bottle, or pretty much anything else that I had on me. At first I thought he was just super greedy, and I told him so once; when he started giggling I realized that he had been joking...so it turned into a daily, long running joke. Well, on Thursday he came up to me, holding a sweetie. I pretended to be overwhelmed with appreciation "Oh, PRINCE! You're giving me a sweetie! Oh my goodness!" etc, etc. He laughed and said "No! Tomorrow. I will give to you tomorrow." Turns out, he meant it! On Friday, he came up to me with a very shy smile on his face, handing me the candy.

At chapel, we gave the card to SuSu and his brothers. Aren't they a cute family?

After school was over and I got home from riding the bus, it was back to work. We still had some major work to do on the new house that we were living in, including getting it ready for 13 people to move into on Monday. So, we spent about 4 more hours doing that, then went again over to Mma Sibongile's to say goodbye. While there, I got a call from Lucy (the wonderful, wonderful woman that is the Reception teacher), saying that there was a hippo at the old bridge! We eventually made our way over there (it took way longer to get there than I would have liked), and by the time we got there, the hippo was gone. So sad.

While we were there, though, Dietra suggested we take a picture in the same spot that we took one our first week here. Here's the first picture from September:

me, Dietra, Josiah and Brad

And here is last week's pic:

Look at the guys' hair! It grew so much

After that "excitement" we went back to work on the house some more, and then it was off to the Lackey's for a going away dinner for the interns, Andrea, and the Witt's (who are on furlough now). We had some amazing Mexican food; best fajitas I have ever had in my life. Yum! The other nice part of the night? We officially ended the internship program. I have a name again!! If they want something from me, they have to ask for Ashley! No more of this "oh, we'll the interns do it."

Jai ho!

After the going away party, I went to bed immediately. So exhausted. The next day we went to prison ministry, and then it was time for the guys to head to the airport. Dietra and I had been planning on going along to say goodbye, but we actually had to stay and babysit for the Witts' kids. By about 3pm or so we were finally "done" for the day, so we went home and crashed. Notice that whenever I have a free moment I seem to be collapsing into bed? I was so worn out by this point. That night we went out to dinner with Andrea, who has been a missionary teacher here for the last 2 years. I already miss her a ton! She was just wonderful to have here.