Thursday and Friday July 31/ August 1

First of all I must say Rabbit Rabbit to jackie if she's out there....

So yesterday we finished orientation which was very boring and was a lot of sitting and talking buuuut in the evening we went to a small village/suburb type place and ate a meal at the home of someone. The food was very traditional... I EVEN TRIED CATERPILLAR. I was very impressed with myself. I didn't eat the whole thing but I did try it. It was kind of raining on and off all night which is pretty rare for Botswana. (Their currency is called Pula which means rain in setswana, so you know it must be valuable. Their cents are called thebe which means shield) There was dancing around a fire after dinner and lots of talking and laughter. There was a girl named N'lady (That's a guess at spelling) which means star in setswana. Her english name was angela and she was soo cute. really adorable and loved the attention and she danced for us.

Today we did a tour of the city by bus. We went to a few malls to see everything and we saw the Parliament (but we weren't allowed to take pictures there) and a lot of government buildings such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. At Main Mall, which is the oldest, I got a wooden bracelet with rhinos carved into it. It was only 15 Pula which is just over $2. We saw a monument called the Three dikgosi which means chiefs. As you go around the monument you read about a short history of Botswana. Starting with Botshabelo which means refuge. Basically the story is that South Africans and Zimbabweans would use Botswana as a refuge from their own political turmoil in the 1820s-30s. Then the Bogaka (Heroism)

is when the first time black people defeated white people in Botswana. The Digkosi beat Ndbele and Boer invaders. This was from the 1830s-1850s. Tshireletso which was from 1880-1890 means protection and the Batswana including Khama III (who is the great grandfather of the current president and grandfather of the first president) went to Britain and asked them to protect Botswana from invaders. The British didn't want to protect Botswana because there were very little known natural resources (diamonds hadn't been found) but chose to protect it only because it was a pathway from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Boitshoko (Endurance) 1900s-1930s was a difficult time for the Batswana as the were very poor but they chose to build schools and dams to invest in their land. Maikarabelo (Global Responsibility)

notes Botswana's involvement in the second world war where they sent 10,000 soldiers to fight, more than any other protectorate. Boipuso (independence) was achieved in 1966 and coincidentally diamonds were found in 1967.

The current economy relies heavily on the Diamond industry. By Main Mall we saw Debswana which is a diamond company. WHEW okay I think that's it. I hope you followed all of that!