My Dream Date - My Dream Come True!

February 14, 2011

My Dream Date Botswana

I bet a lot of you are probably wondering, “Why the long silence on the blog?” Well, let’s just say history has a way of repeating itself. This update might sound a lot like the Family Fun Day story a few months back…If you’ve read a few of my earlier blogs, you probably know I’ve been spending the majority of my internship trying to mobilize resources, locally. One of the major challenges presented to me by the Hospice management is that international donors are very particular about what funds are used for, and can make it difficult for the Hospice to establish its own priorities. So I figured what better way to give the Hospice some flexibility, not to mention local publicity, than to spearhead a high profile fundraiser in partnership with local artists and media personalities? Hence, the conception of My Dream Date: Your chance to win a date with one of Botswana’s Most Beautiful Celebrities.

My Dream Date organizers and celebs!

This event was supposed to take place last year, on December 7. Unfortunately, due to lack of time for promotion, we postponed it until closer to Valentines Day. One of the first things I did upon return to work in January was set up a meeting with the management at one of Botswana’s most exclusive clubs. We were told we could use the venue on a Thursday night, since it would be less busy, and we would have to split the proceeds, 40/60 with the venue owners. We had learned from last year that a P200 ticket (about $32 CAN), including dinner and a drink, was too expensive for most people in Gaborone, especially once you consider the additional cost of bidding for a date. This time round, tickets were P50 for entrance only, to encourage younger people to attend, even if it was just to watch the show.

We had already printed posters and done several media interviews on Monday morning, when we passed by our venue, just to check on the stage and DJ set-up. It was then that we discovered our venue was under new management, and would be closed for at least the next two weeks, and would no longer be available for our event on Thursday night. You can imagine the look of anger, disappointment and panic on our faces. We had three days to secure a new venue.

Thinking quickly, we raced to Cresta Lodge, where the management had been very friendly and supportive, in providing us with two dinner vouchers valued at P400 each. With the sweetest and most desperate appeal, we asked if we could use the Sports Bar venue on Thursday night- unfortunately it was already booked. The manager offered us a Saturday night instead, but upon surveying some of our celebrity personalities, we learned most of them would not be available. We didn’t know what else to do.

We sat with our head in our hands for a long time, with a feeling that Family Fun Day was happening all over again. We couldn’t cancel; no one would ever take us seriously again. We couldn’t change nights; all the posters were already up, our celebs were booked, and we’d been advertising on radio and in newspapers. All this was making us very thirsty, so I went inside to get us some drinks. Imagine my surprise when Tumie Ramsden, the marketing executive of Yarona FM, female voice of The Real Enchilada, and one of our celebrity dates, called me over to her lunch meeting, and said, “You look stressed, what’s the matter?” I explained what happened to our venue, and that we were in a panic. She reassured me something would work out, and introduced me to her colleague across the table, Mr. Joshua Ntsuke, Manager of Sales and Marketing for Cresta Hotels across Botswana. He asked me more about our event, and assured me that Cresta President Hotel would be available on Thursday, and would get back to me about booking the facilities. I felt completely elated, as if God had answered our prayers.

Within 24 hours, we had booked the conference room of Cresta President Hotel (readers of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency will know a little about this place) and we were doing two radio interviews per day, notifying everyone of the change. A few of our celebs were no longer able to attend; however most were still completely on board. Pearl had managed to get complementary beauty treatments for all of our participants at Gaborone Technical College from the department of hair dressing and beauty therapy, and everyone was delighted to be pampered – especially the guys!

On the big night, we started on Africa Time, and members of the press had shown up and were taking pictures and interviewing us about our event and the Hospice – which was also a huge step, considering a lot of people in Gaborone have never heard of our organization.

At this point, I wasn’t entirely sure how the audience would interpret the first event of its kind in Botswana – Motswana are used to auctioning of cattle, not people! Beforehand, we had each of our celebrity guests fill out a profile of their interests, talents and idea of a perfect date, which really helped people get in the mood for bidding. By far, the best profile came from K-Bos,  “Economist by Day; Hip Hop artist 24/7” who indicated in the section marked, “Anything else your date should know about you?” that he has two puppies, Rena and ZigZ – which is proof he’ll be able to afford a baby! You should have heard the ladies in the audience “Awwww”-ing in unison! He also serenaded us with one of his rhymes, about true love. (It should come as no surprise that I walked away the lucky winner of dinner with K-Bos, including a bottle of wine, at Chatters Bar and Restaurant at the Cresta Lodge!)

The night continued on with lots of laughs and fun, as the Canadian girls started to interact with our Mr. Botswana bodybuilders, who took off their shirts to reveal massive six-packs, bulging shoulders and biceps, and Eddie/Major hoisted our little Leigh onto one arm and swung her around as she showed off her best body-builder impressions!

The night was a huge success, even though I’m sure no more than half our audience had any idea what was going on at any given time! Towards the end of the night, even the cleaning and wait staff of Cresta President were peering in to see what all the hooting and hollering was about! We managed to finish up the auction at about 10 pm, and turn the room into a club, where all the audience members got to shake their thang with our celebs! So many people came up and told me they had a blast and thought My Dream Date was a really creative idea! Our celebs were so happy to be a part of our event and all of them went home smiling.

We ended up raising about P5000, which is close to $1000 CAN, but we still have a few ticket sales to chase up, and several of our winning bidders appear to be taking the “lay-by” payment option (luckily I know where they live!).

If there’s anything I have learned from My Dream Date, it’s that you have to be able to admit when you’re wrong, be flexible and be extremely patient. Things have a way of working out, and you can really only ever rely on your friends to be your greatest source of strength and support through the tough times.

A special thanks to all of our sponsors and celebrity guests:

Guys

4 Mr Botswana Body Building Finalists

Scar

Zeus

Oneal

Simba

K-Bos

Girls

Fatima

Olga

Ana

Amy

Joanna

Media

DUMA Fm – official radio sponsor

Yarona Fm

Gabz FM

The Gazette

The Voice

The Mirror

Global Post

Beauty Treatments

Gaborone Technical College

 Restaurants

Cresta President Hotel – venue and dinner for two

Cresta Lodge - 2 dinners for two

Cattle Baron – dinner for two

Embassy Indian Cuisine – 2 dinners for two

Grand Palm – dinner for two

Linga Longa/Mugg & Bean/Bull & Bush – 2 dinners for two

Maharaja- lunch for two

Pavilion- 2 lunches for two

Primi – dinner for two

Rodizio – dinner for two

Sanitas Tea Garden – lunch for two

Spur – 2 dinners for two

World AIDS Day & My Dream Date

If you read my last blog post, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why would she want to live in Botswana?” The events of this week are the answer to that question.

To give you some background, at just about the same that we started planning for Family Fun Day, a friend of mine from Guyana (also a Coady participant) suggested we host a bachelor/bachelorette auction to raise funds for the Hospice. I pitched the idea to Caroline and Pearl, and they both loved the idea. From there, we secured a free venue at Bull & Bush, one of the most popular bars/clubs in Gaborone.

We knew if we wanted to raise the maximum funds, we would need to attract Botswana’s most beautiful celebrities. We set up an appointment with a friend of the Hospice, Masego (her name means “blessing”- and believe me, she is one!) who works for Pulse Media, a marketing firm, and had organized fundraising events in the past on behalf of the Hospice, and seems to know everyone in Gaborone. She put out a few feelers to her network of celeb friends, and forwarded me their contact information. Without even realizing it, I had access to the top selling recording artist in the country, Vee, among various other celebrity radio personalities, rap artists and Miss Botswana finalists.

A few weeks earlier, on our way to running errands at Game City in preparation for Fun Day, I voiced my concern that we still needed more bachelors as we passed a billboard for Nivea men’s face cream, “Where are we going to get a bunch of guys as gorgeous as that man?” No sooner had we walked into the mall, did I see a poster of male body-builders, sans shirts, advertising the Mr. Botswana contest, which had recently passed- with cell numbers! I quickly dialed up Mr. Botswana’s organizers and told them about our idea, to which they immediately agreed to send us five finalists from the contest. It turns out Pearl is friends with the organizers, and they even offered to come teach our palliative care clients some exercise techniques!

Saturday was the Eve Against AIDS concert (lately the running joke in Gabs is who is actually for AIDS? But I digress…), so I bought a ticket to the gold section and checked it out with a few friends. There was a ton of local talent that just blew me away before the headliner performed. Eve was a big disappointment, to put it bluntly, but nonetheless it was very entertaining concert.

When I went to the washroom, I noticed Juju Boy (another top recording artist) was hanging out next to the braai stand. I quickly made my way over, and met up with Freakazoid, the male dance group from last week’s family fun day, only to learn that they share a manager with Zeus, one of Botswana’s top rappers. Zeus had already agreed to participate in our event, and was more than willing to talk to other artists to get them to join in. By the time the night was over, I had met rappers Scar, K-Bos and a few other radio personalities, who all wanted to be dates for “My Dream Date”!

In addition, I had also been introduced to Moroka, the owner of The Mirror, a major Botswana Newspaper, who gave me his number and told me to call him to explain more about the event. I told him we were getting local restaurants to sponsor dinner for two, so the winners of “My Dream Date” auction would get to go for dinner for free. My idea was that in addition to promoting the event beforehand, we would run stories about how the dates went afterward, and this would double as a marketing opportunity for the restaurant sponsors, as the celebrity dates would review the food too. Moroka loved the idea, and invited me to his office on Monday for an interview!

On Sunday I called Vee to confirm if he would be available on Dec 7, the evening of “My Dream Date.” He told me he’d stop by my place to discuss it in person. A few hours later, Vee called and told me he was outside my apartment compound. I ran down to the gate, only to discover our new security guard had suddenly decided to implement the rule that all guests must sign in with their national ID card. I looked at the security guard, and said, “You mean to tell me you don’t know this guy?” He looked at Vee, and shook his head. Vee said something in Setswana, probably something like “I’m Vee”, and the guard had to do a double-take and started laughing, “I do know him. He doesn’t have to sign in.”

My roommates Leigh and Sarah were both home, and we welcome Vee and his friend Timmy, a DJ who performed at the concert, to our flat. Vee was very sweet and humble, and loved the idea of “My Dream Date”, and was impressed by Sarah’s poster design. Unfortunately, he would be out of town that week on a Brand Botswana tour around the country, but he suggested a few more artists to contact. He probably stayed for about 10 minutes, but the experience of having Botswana’s most famous artist in my living room was pretty surreal.

Yesterday I visited Moroka at The Mirror. He offered me an advert of our poster and an interview on the spot, to be published in today’s paper! He was very supportive, and called his friend Mpho, a fashion correspondent at Duma FM, to set up a radio interview for Thursday. He gave me her number and told me to ask her to be one of our bachelorettes. With in a few minutes, she had agreed! He also suggested I call his “boy”, Kgotla, another famous recording artist, and ask him to participate. When I got back to the office and told Pearl that Kgotla was going to be in our auction, I swear she blushed!

The experience of organizing “My Dream Date” has taught me that when you ask for something, and you really need it, God has a way of answering your prayers. In a place like Botswana, with a population of 2 million and some people, you have to know how to network effectively, because everyone knows everyone. An event like My Dream Date has never been attempted before, but my dream is to see it become an annual event.

My First Family Fun Day

First Raffle Prize- Donated to the Hospice!

(For those of you wondering why I’ve been so silent on the blogging front, this is why).

Last Friday, with less than 24 hours until our first Family Fun Day fundraiser, I arrived at the hospice to be informed by Pearl, my fabulous co-fundraiser and friend, that Gaborone Parks had double-booked Tsholofelo Park with another Family Fun Day. If you could have seen the expressions on Caroline’s and my faces, you would have thought someone had died.

It seemed that all our hard work over the past two months would be completely undermined. Another church was hosting a Fun Day, without the motive of fundraising. Suddenly the profit we expected to make from selling braai (barbequed meat) would be undercut by the free food from the church group, and we would be lucky if we broke even.

We had barely managed to get any donations of food, and the hospice was unable to free up any funds in time to purchase the necessary ingredients. In a last-minute compromise, we approached Absolute Berlin sausage cart and a few ladies that sell braai around the city during the week at lunch time, and asked them to set up shop for the day for P150 plus P1 for every item sold. This was assuming they would make more than P150 in sales.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, we learned the generator we had booked would not be available until 12 pm on Saturday. No generator, no sound system, no jumping castle. We had been lucky to secure a sound system and DJ from the Holy Cross Cathedral and a sponsor for the castle, but no one had a generator we could use. We were expecting six acts from My Africa Dream (think America’s Got Talent- Botswana-style), but without power, the performances were suddenly nothing but a dream.

We had been monitoring the weather reports, and after a week of dreary, but much needed rain, we knew the prospects for a sunny clear day in the park were limited. And we had yet to obtain a tent. After countless visits and phone calls to police stations and prisons to inquire about borrowing a tent, we were becoming accustomed to hearing all of the tents were booked by funerals and weddings, and we should have called weeks earlier.

In one last attempt, I picked up the phone to my local police station and by some miracle, the woman on the other end said her daughter was enrolled at the Holy Cross Preschool, and that she would ensure we would have a tent, and that we were to come to the station right away.

While Pearl and Caroline took off to pick up the tent, I got on the phone to Gaborone Parks and gave them an earful about why we could not possibly share the park with another Family Fun Day, and how unfair it was that they had neglected to inform us of this arrangement until the day before our event. They took my number and told me they would get back to me. Furious as I was, I continued to cut out over 200 raffle tickets, and hand-number them, and stamp them with the hospice stamp, so as to avoid anyone creating a fraudulent ticket.

With some good fortune, we were able to get the church to move across the street to Tsholofelo Hall, and Mma Rakwadi, the Chairperson of the hospice board of directors, organized the money to pay for the rental of the generator. We were even able to get a giant Coco-cola bottle stall for selling drinks and keeping them cool.

Much to our surprise, Saturday was the most beautiful day we’ve seen in a week, and we were able to pitch the giant tent without any major difficulties.

The acts from My Africa Dream were amazing, our hospice marimba band performed beautiful traditional music throughout the day, whenever there was a gap in the show. When we made the draw for the first prize of the raffle, a kitchen set with microwave, donated by Game, the winner graciously donated it to the hospice, because he felt we could make better use of it!

While our fundraising efforts were met with numerous challenges, we were extremely proud of our hard work, and it turned out to be a beautiful and entertaining day. The experience reminded me that things have a way of working out, and that the pace at which I’m accustomed to working in Canada will cause me to burn out faster, and I must learn to move slower. A successful Fun Day is possible, however we probably could have used another two months to plan.

Two Lekgoas are better than one

In Chile, I was Gringo. In Ghana, I was Obruni. In Kenya, I was Mzungu. Now I’m locally known as Lekgoa, mostly to children. My walk to work affords me an interesting cross-section of the Gaborone demographics. I leave Village, an upper-middle class suburb where Gaborone originated in the 1950s, and pass major construction efforts on the main road, on the other side of which there is a shiny shopping centre with some of the latest fashions and home décor, at prices more or less in line with what I would expect to pay in Canada. I walk through a dirt lot, converted into a road-side driving school, a la bright orange pylons, and watch out of the corner of my eye as young people try desperately not to back over them, as they practice their parallel parking skills.

I take a shortcut through a muddy ditch, which is peppered with dry dollops of cow dung, but I have yet to encounter the bearers of such gifts on my walk. I pass Fairgrounds Business Park, which houses some of the leading corporations in Botswana, such as Barclays, KPMG, Mascom and Botswana Insurance. I greet Mamas selling sweets and fat cakes just outside of staff parking lots, sitting under umbrellas on cooler boxes, their stalls fully stocked for the day. I stride through intersections and three lanes of traffic, as if I’m invincible to oncoming traffic. Without the look of fearlessness, no one will ever give you the right of way. This look has also deterred much unwanted attention from the opposite sex, but given the right outfit, some men will be so bold as to profess their love, or ask me to marry them. My latest retort is, “Does that ever work for you?” has yet to solicit a response- most of them are smart enough to keep walking.

Opposite Fairgrounds, is the Hospice neighbourhood, known as Newstands, but the odd time I attempt to give directions, it arouses blank stares. Suddenly my celebrity status has multiplied. As I turn the corner of an outdoor welding shop, children stream from their houses, shouting,

“Lekgoa, Lekgoa!” and wave at me with wide eyes and excitement. I dodge the odd rooster or chicken, as I wave back with a dutiful “Dumela Rra/Ma!,” depending on my audience. As I walk down the dirt road to the Hospice, I observe the remnants of the previous evenings’ drink fest. When I first started walking this route, a team of community women with green felt badges and a silver star on their lapels was just beginning their efforts to clear the gutters of debris, in preparation for the coming rains. Several women sit in quiet conversation in front of their houses, and laugh at my feeble attempts at Setswana. I have tried to commend them for their hard work, in English, unsure if the message gets through. It has always frustrated me to see such pollution in neighbourhoods where children play and go to school.

Last night as I left the Hospice, I came upon a group of men in the exact same place the women has been cleaning in the morning. The men all wanted to greet me and shake my hand, as they were already in a happy state, well into their second round of Chibuku Shake Shake, a cheap local brew that comes in a milk carton. I point at the empty containers littering the street.

“What is this?” I ask indignantly. The oldest man in the group jumps up and tries to engage me in the typical, ‘Where are you from? What is your name?’ conversation. But I persist. I tell them the women have been working hard, and they are undoing their progress.

“When the rains come, everything will be flooded because of this mess.” The man tells me they have no dustbin. I tell him to get one,

“I know you can do better than this. You want to be friends with me? Than you clean up this place.”

“Okay, okay.” He agrees. “We can get one.”

“That would make me happy. I don’t want to see anymore beer and Chibuku in the gutters, alright?”

“Ay-ma”

“Ke a leboga Rra”. ‘Who knows if this will have any sort of impact?’ I think to myself as I walk home alone.

On my way through Newstands after picking up tickets to Freshly Ground (Band from South Africa, best known from singing the  remake of Waka Waka with Shakira for the World Cup), Leigh (who’s off this week after a weekend up north for a sporting event with Botswana Council of Churches),  and I were stopped by some neighbourhood women asking me what I was complaining about yesterday. I told them I asked the men to put their drinks in the dustbin. The women agreed, but were more interested in my half-eaten loaf of raisin bread. I gave it to them, and they shared it with their children, ecstatic about the presence of two Lekgoas.

Mochudi Cultural Weekend

It’s so weird to think I’ve been in Bots for half a month already! I feel like I just arrived, but so much has happened in the last week and a half. Mark and the other interns flew back to Canada on Friday, so we made sure to see them off in style on Thursday at NewsCafe, an ultra-chic lounge/bar not too far from our flat. It was a bit sad to see them go, but I know they have an exciting journey ahead of themselves, and they will likely be back in Bots in the not-too-distant future.

On Saturday my friend, Andrew Modiga, from the hospice invited the four of us to his hometown of Mochudi to watch the cultural initiation ceremonies of the Bakgatla tribe. Andrew’s friend Kabelo, who I had met earlier at the intern going away party, picked us up, along with his friend, Archie. We went on a wild-goose chase to find a cooler pack for our beer, which turned out to be unnecessary, considering it wasn’t really appropriate to drink at the festival, and we only arrive at 2:30 pm, and festivities were wrapping up around 4:30. It was really nice to get out Gabs for the day, since the city is so urban and modern, and I have so many Canadian and expat friends in the neighbourhood, I almost forget I’m in Africa. When we arrived at the cultural centre, there was a large group of men from the Bakgatla regime assembling in a circular formation, chanting and marching in time. It sounded amazing, and was beautiful to watch, with each man holding a wooden staff with white and black ostrich feathers, and a cape made from an impala or other small deer-like creatures. Apparently this meant to replicate the method the tribe uses to hunt animals in a semi-circle, and close in on them. The men of the tribe go away from their village, and live off the land in the bush for two months, to learn how to be a “real man”. This ceremony was performed to formally recognize their return to the community. We also got to eat some traditional food, which was prepared in ways I’ve never seen before, but mostly they were familiar foods- beef, green peas, beans and pumpkin. We also took a quick look at some of the vendors’ crafts, cultural items and photography for sale. I noticed they had many large, hollowed-out gourds for drinking and storing water, and I couldn’t help but think I would like to get a set for the house- they would likely fair better than our dwindling glass collection!

Leigh, Archie and I, overlooking Mochudi

Work at the hospice has been interesting, but a little slow to get moving. Presently I’m reviewing some of the proposals Mark worked on, and meeting the hospice’s board members and the bishop of the Anglican church to discuss the strategic direction of the hospice’s future. There’s a lot of work on my end, but I’m excited and grateful to pretty much get free reign to develop my own ideas for fundraising strategies. I’m looking forward to establishing some long-term partnerships with local business in Botswana and possibly Southern Africa.

The kittens I see sleeping at the hospice every morning- too bad they're scared of people.

Getting into the Groove

I'm back in Africa again. This time it’s Botswana. I’ve felt more relaxed on this journey than I ever have in my previous travels. Probably because I’m accompanied by three of the most beautiful, intelligent and kind women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. And because the Coady International Institute spent three weeks of extensive training preparing us for every situation imaginable…almost.

Let me rewind back to how I got here. From the beginning. In March, I started panicking a little bit about what I would do upon August graduation from my MA in International Development and Global Studies. Even with my experience in Ghana, teaching at a school for the Deaf in ’07, and working as a research assistant on HIV awareness amongst Nairobi’s Deaf population for Handicap International in Kenya in ’09, it was made clear to me that getting a full-time position in a development field that interested me would be tough without some more extensive time working overseas.

I scoured the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) website for internships that suited my background and would allow me enough time to wrap up my major research paper before shipping out for a six-month placement. The only one that met that description was Coady’s fall batch of internships. I indicated a preference for two positions in Botswana, one with Botswana Council of Churches working on an HIV awareness project for young males, the other with Holy Cross Hospice, as a resource mobilizer, as I was keen to develop my fundraising skills, as I assumed this would be extremely transferable to a number of different sectors.

A few weeks later, I was selected for an interview, and within another week I knew I would be working for the Hospice. I also learned there were already four Canadian interns from the Coady working in the same Botswana placements the new interns were about to step into.

The nice thing about being selected for a Coady internship is that there’s a tremendous amount of support offered through the three-week pre-departure training on campus at St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish Nova Scotia. During training I made 19 fantastic new friends, who make up the other interns from across Canada, with diverse travel, volunteer, work and educational experiences, all perfectly suited for their internships in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Botswana, Ghana, Peru and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We did plenty of cross-cultural training, were introduced to nationals from our host countries, developed facilitation, proposal writing and budgeting skills, and interacted with Coady Leadership Diploma participants from around the world (many of whom were from Kenya and had me brushing up on my Swahili!).

After traveling independently to Africa twice, and not having much cross-cultural support pre- and post-adventure, I feel pretty confident that I won’t have any difficulty adapting to Botswana, affectionately called “Africa-lite.”

The trip here was about as good as any 40-hour journey to a foreign country can get. We departed from residence at the Coady at 2:30 am Antigonish time, and cruised to the airport in style in a limo-taxi, upholstered with burgundy velvet, trimmed with flashing disco-coloured lighting. We shared a bottle of red wine, which pretty much knocked us all out for the 2-hour drive. We got through customs without too much delay, and met the pair heading to Peru on the other side. We flew to JFK/New York in about 2 hours, and waited around in the airport for about 5 hours, eating over-priced and unappetizing sandwiches and checking facebook. The flight to Johannesburg, South Africa was about 16 hours, and despite having an extra seat next to me, I struggled to get any descent sleep, yet somehow managed to miss one of two in-flight meals. I spent the majority of the flight watching the first season of Lie to Me, and trying to keep my legs from getting stiff and swelling up.

When we arrived in Jo’berg, we realized we had a 5-hour stopover, so we took our time getting through customs, checking our emails and finding somewhere to grab lunch. Getting on the express flight to Gaborone, Botswana was the first time I allowed myself to get really excited about the trip, since the built-up anticipation from three weeks of training had led me to distance myself from any expectations and emotions about life and work in Botswana.

When we stepped off the plane, we were the only plane or passengers in the airport. All but one of our bags arrived with us. Amy was missing one duffle bag. We wheeled our stack of luggage out to the arrivals gate and were met by at least one staff member from our host organizations, along with all four of the current interns.

Mark, who also worked for Holy Cross Hospice, carried my stuff to the hospice van, and two staff members brought us to our new apartment. The short drive was much calmer than Nairobi traffic, and from the brief tour, everything seemed safe, clean and organized in Gaborone. It was bit overwhelming to talk to all the previous interns and our landlords once we arrived at the apartment, but it was really nice to have somewhere to shower and nap, before meeting up for dinner with the other interns. Dinner was really fun and informative, but more than anything I felt like I never left home. The Riverwalk mall is modern with designer clothing, hi-tech shops and a cinema. After a quick perusal of the grocery store, we realized we could buy nearly anything we wanted here, and wi-fi was free in the restaurant, so long as we order some food or drink.

First Safari... in Jo'Burg Airport

I’ve just been catching up on sleep and getting organized these past days. I already feel at home in the new flat, and I’m hoping to head over to the Hospice tomorrow, to get a tour, meet the staff and see what Mark’s been up to the past six months. I already have a lot of ideas about fundraising, which I’m hoping will be turned on their head as soon as I know exactly what the Hospice is doing now, and its plans for the future.

Roomies deep in discussion at our new place

Who needs air fresheners when you have a Jasmine (?) tree outside?

My Chariot Awaits

Lucky me- so many fellow Yippers- 7 Youth in Parternship interns - are packing into the limo in just under an hour, to embark on our journey to Peru, Botswana and St. Vincent and the Grenadines! Can't wait to get this party started!

Colleen and Marcus wishin' they were accompanying us to the airport!