Days 7-10

It's been everything but a dull moment these past few days. Even now, in the dead of the night, a semi-quite house, (semi-quiet meaning every few minutes I hear the scurry of tiny rats/mice up in the attic), and two dogs who are finally sound asleep on the chair behind me, dull would be the last word I'd use to describe my emotions.

Explanation: I'm staying at my bosses house while she's away at a big world meeting in Namibia. She'll be gone for 10 days and asked me to take over. In the back of my head I thought "no", but the word "yes" flew out of my mouth before I had time to catch it. Now, here I sit, in a quite house, scared out of my mind, longing to be back in my hotel room.

I just came back from dinner with these people:

Some fellow BYU/UofU students who are here in Gabs for an internship/research project. When I returned from dinner, I noticed the red light flashing at the Marine's house a few blocks down...we pulled up to "my" house, and the same red light was flashing. I quickly jumped out of the car, ran through the gate, opened the front door as fast as I could, and found two dogs going nuts. Tipped over garbage cans, rugs scattered all over the house, and nothing but high pitched yaps filling the air. Why was the red light flashing? No clue.

I'm already out of my comfort zone being in Botswana, and putting me in a big house, all alone, in a place I'm not familiar with, doesn't help calm the nerves any. With all of the security in this house, unsafe is the last thing I should be feeling, yet that's exactly how I seem to feel. To liven things up a bit more, something hit the house causing the dogs AND me to freak out. Not to mention, one of the girls we were with happened to tell us a not so lovely story at dinner about her co-workers father who was beaten after a breakin to their house a few days ago. Gosh, I couldn't wait to come home and be alone after that.

On a more positive note: Yesterday I got to visit an awesome village in a place called Molepolole. It's close to becoming my new favorite word. Say it out loud. It will soon be on it's way to becoming your new favorite word too. We also made it over to Letlhakeng, another village about two hours from Gabs. Not as cool of a word, but a pretty awesome village regardless.

For your viewing pleasure:

{The village of Letlhakeng}

On our way back through Molepolole we stopped at an orphanage and I happended to see this sign hanging on the fence:

I learned that the church is renting out their dinning hall for their chuch services until the church is finished being built. It's also the chuch's way of helping provide this orphanage with some extra money each month to help the children out. Earlier in the day we saw a young man with a white shirt, tie, and black pants on. He looked as though he was on his way to work. My co-worker took one look at him and said, "He looks like one of those Mormons!" Even in Botswana, the Mormons are well known.