Busy-ness! (Late Update from June!)

Have you ever been so busy that you haven’t had time to stop and breathe?

I feel like that’s been me the past few weeks.

June started with Teacher’s Day, a national holiday to celebrate teachers all over Botswana. After being in an early morning motorcarde, we went to a program at the kgotla (pronounced ho-ta). The kgotla is where the chief of the village hears cases, honors villagers, and takes care of other business concerning the village. There was traditional dancing, singing, poetry, and speeches. Afterwards all the teachers in the area gathered at a lodge for a afternoon of food and fellowship. We even got to take a row boat out on Palapye’s only lake! (Note: Motswana in my area are not real familiar with water sports, so my advice is never get out in a boat with a Motswana. You will be out in the middle of the lake spinning in 4ft. of water for hours!)

Next William and Mary student, Kaity Smoot, paid us a visit. She’s doing her Monroe project on Botswana and the economy and wanted to check out the village for a few days. She got the unique opportunity to go with us to a funeral. This was the first funeral we had attended in Botswana. The funeral really lasts for several days. You have prayer for several days that leads up to a day of all-night prayer and then the burial the next morning. Women at the funerals must wear long skirts and have their hair entirely wrapped up. In this picture some of my students are wrapping my hair for the funeral.

Also this month we were able to visit the village of Lecheng and see the ruins of a David Livingstone church and hike out to a waterfall. This is a picture of the Operation:HIV team in Palapye standing among the ruins of the church. (Kelly, Tshepiso, Me, and Crystal). This site was the home of the Bangwato tribe and the church was built from 1891-1894. Tshepiso is a descendent of this tribe. Then we hiked out to the waterfall, which surprisingly had a little water left in it even though we haven’t had rain in weeks.

Are you all watching the World Cup at all? Botswana has one television station and it only shows the World Cup now. So we’ve become fans like everyone else here. At soccer we had our own World Cup. The kids got a partner and tried to get a goal before anyone else. The last team to score a goal each round was out. Italy won our World Cup! We’ll see if they can win the real one! Here the kids are gathered around the radio listening to a World Cup game after they have scored there goals to push them through to the next round.

Prayer Requests:

-We have a team from Georgia coming to serve in Palapye from July 5-19. Pray for their safe travel and their preparation as they get ready to come and serve.

-Pray for the students in my Bible study, that they will come to know Christ.

-Pray for Tshepiso as he’s making decisions about his future and where God wants him to school and to serve.

-Pray for Palapye Baptist church as we continue to transition.

-Pray that we can find some time to relax and not become overwhelmed with all of our responsibilities as of late.