First month

Interesting, I haven't been able to connect to this blog since we arrived in country (over a month ago now!), and today when I aimed to pull up my school blog, here it is! I figure I better take the opportunity... Dave and I went on an overnight safari in Chobe in Botswana and had an amazing time. The first pride of lions we saw caught my breath. I photographed them through tears...what amazing animals. Hundreds of elepants, many water buffalo and hippos, probably thousands of impalas (they look like tritone antelope...), many giraffes, a couple monitor lizards, HUGE crocodiles...we drove quickly away from a very large bull elephant in musthe (must?)...the next land cruiser to come along didn't give him quite a wide enough berth and his angry tusk dented their hood. Elephants can be fast and fierce when they need to. We saw "The Victoria Falls" at the perfect amount of water on the Zambian side. Typically this time of year, the mist is so thick you can't even see the falls. Good viewing for us, but bad for the country's hydropower situation...which leads to load shedding, systematic loss of power for 4 hours per day on a rotating schedule. This morning the power was off from 8am-12, so Tehila's directors and I drove off to a place called The Retreat which had a lovely pool and a lovely menu. They had coffees and I sat in and used the wifi. My project so far has been varied: I researched and presented a Child Marriage powerpoint to about 50 6th graders who were impressively engaged and asked far more questions than I expected. It was excellent. Then I attended a 3 day Awana training to learn how to guide children in games, bible study/memorization, and teamwork. Zambia is a Christian country. Diversity is coming as more people migrate all over the world, yet Zambia maintains its identity and Awana aims to teach children about God's love for them. It was really a great program, and eye opening for me, as religion is important for many Americans, but it is also not important for many Americans and I feel a social expectation that people of diverse faiths will leave their religions at home when they come to work or to school. Something I am learning about in social work here is that it is inseparable from faith, and when working with religious or spiritual people, incorporating their beliefs often supports their healing and improves their outcomes. It's been a good month. Hopefully I will be able to update again soon!

Preparation

Step 1: finish finals for my second semester of grad school. Check. Step 2: pack and clean the apartment. In process.