My birthday was about a week ago now. Wow, time really is going very quickly here. I did not have the traditional American 21st birthday and I did not have the traditional Botswana 21st birthday either. I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant here with some friends. We have become their favorite customers, because whenever we are all feeling sick of the food Primi is our number one spot. I got some pizza, some pasta, some brownie, and some ice cream and just talked with some friends. It was great to have some good food! And yes mom, there were lots of vegetables involved! I had a few drinks, had a celebratory shot (tasted like a Banana split), and headed to a bar called The Room. The name of the "bar" explains it all. It is a room, with about 2 tables, 4 bar seats and a bar that serves a couple of beers and liquors, and also serves 3 meals every day. We have come to get to know the bartender there and she loves us, so it was great to see her! The drinking scene is a bit different here, as the bars close around 11pm, due to new laws by the new president. We arrived around 10 15, so we just had a drink and headed out. All in all I would say my celebration was a success. I got to spend time with the people I have gotten to know here, and was not tired or sick the next morning!! (a more successful 21st than a lot of people I know). It was a little bit sad to not be able to spend my birthday with family and friends from back home, although I know you were all there with me in spirit!
This week I realized how expensive living here really is. I need to stop thinking that I am on an extended vacation and realize that I am LIVING here. As bad as the food gets, eating out needs to stop. So, this week I did not do a whole lot, which was actually nice. I went to class, hung out with friends, and did some reading (considering I'm in 4 English classes). This week 3 different times I had a teacher not show up, so my week was a bit shorter than usual. A birthday present to me, huh? Although the lack of organization is starting to get to me. When you show up at a school to fill out paperwork to volunteer and they tell you to just "keep trying back everyday, someone will help you eventually" (it is a 20 minute drive that costs me roughly 9 bucks), or when it takes you 2 hours to try and work out how to print 1 sheet of paper off, The University can be slightly frustrating. The culture, the people, the language, and the area are all amazing things, and I am really enjoying myself. However, the university can be slightly irritating. As much as we all want a relaxed school, I am finding that some aspects of an "uptight" schooling system are needed. I think that for my own teaching reasons, this experience will help me a lot. I have not been able to volunteer yet, which has been a pretty big bummer, although I hope to sort that all out this week. I went to the school this past week and all of the kids came SPRINTING out of their classrooms, jumping out of windows (low ones, don't worry) and jumping all over me, begging to stay. They were absolutely adorable, and I cannot wait to start working with all of them. My driver told me that they probably were so excited because the area that they live in is rarely visited by white people, and many of them may have never seen a white person before. It was really an interesting feeling to have them "pick" at me and stroke my hair, as if I was out of a movie screen.
This weekend has been very relaxing. Friday night a couple of us spent the night trying to figure out our "spring break" plans. We are trying to visit some beautiful beaches in Mozambique, although our eyes are much bigger than our wallets; we are working on downsizing. Saturday was one of the best days I have had here yet. One of our friends from here had invited us over to his house for the afternoon for a braai and to go swimming. He picked us up from campus around 11 30, and we spent the day there until about 8 at night! The house was absolutely gorgeous. They had a huge outdoor area with a pool, a shaded eating area with gorgeous wooden tables and benches, great trees and plants spread around the patio, and just an overall great outdoor area. The backyard area is what I want my house to be like when I am older. Living in a hot climate means that they are able to create almost another house that is outdoors. As we took a dip in the pool and went down their mini water slide, his parents cooked us up 2 different kinds of meat, a veggie roast with corn, squash, green beans, carrots and plenty of other great veggies, and a whole salad. It was the best meal I have had here!! They were incredibly generous, feeding us more than enough food and drinks, and letting us lazy around their pool all day. After we were done eating, they brought us ice cream with this AMAZING chocolate sauce to put on it. We were stuffed. We all headed to the pool area and we all had the same thing on our mind: naptime! So we all spread our towels out, found a spot in the sun, and closed our eyes for a while. It was really a food coma. After napping we swam for a while longer and then headed inside to just hang out for a while. As the guys played foosball, all of us sat around, talked and braided each others hair. It was really relaxing. As we were on our way out, we stopped and chatted with his mother and her friends about all of the Do's and don'ts of Mozambique-it was really helpful. The day was not only relaxing, but felt very comfortable the whole time. When you are a student in a totally different area, you feel like a visitor much of the time. However, for the first time here, we went to our friends house and I almost felt like I was with friends from home, laughing, eating and enjoying the day. It was really enjoyable.
Today, I woke up in hopes of a day next to the pool here reading for my classes. However, after sitting by the pool for a half an hour, a security guard came around and told all of us that the pool would not be opening today because they were cleaning it. We peered inside, did not see anyone doing anything, and started to crack jokes about how that was clearly an excuse. The security guard did not seem too pleased, and when we asked her about putting a sign up so that everyone would know, she told us that was not her job. Abby if you are reading this, welcome to Africa! Although I was disappointed, I found that occurrences like this are starting to not get to me as much. I have started to brush them off and move on, because dwelling on them would really ruin my time here. So now I will spend the day lying on my bed, reading with the sun shining in on me. I really can't complain :)
I hope all of you are doing well, and I would love to hear from all of you! So skype me, email me, facebook me-anything! It's always great to hear from you all back home. I heard about all of the snow-THAT IS CRAZY!! and I am finding myself very sad I am missing the snow! I never thought I would miss it so much, but I really am sad that it will be a looong time before I see another really big snow storm. Happy February to you all (I can't believe I am in a tank top and shorts in february!!), and try to stay warm! I finally had a birthday in warm weather-who would have thought that would ever happen!
P.S. Still no sunburn...this is a miracle.
