Thursday, April 30, 2009

Lesedi and Kabo Gower


Those are our new Setswana names given to us by our host family. This post will be short and sweet because this snail of a computer has a long line of used ready to take my place. We arrived in Gabarone 12 days ago and it feels like it just happened. Time flies. Our American style hotel with an African theme gave us a false sense of security of the poverty of this area. Orientation was exhausting but never a dull moment....

We can consider ourselves to be deep in the heart of the dark continent, well just Molepoloe Botswana, 60 min outside the Gabarone capital. Language training is extremely intense but we have a great "morutabana" (teacher). In today's 4 hr. session we learned all types of transportation, directions, and how to travel. "tonki" mean donkey and "pitse" means horse. Following our language we walk to our group meeting spot to do culture, safety, and HIV/AIDS training. We are always learning new things that I hope my mind can retain.

Homestays are all different. Ours is about middle in the scale of things. We have electricity but no running water. Not too bad since out water spicket is on the compound. We have a pit latrine (outhouse) but it is very clean and no bugs!!! We take a bucket bath every morning which is exactly what it sounds: a bath in a bucket. It's not bad but you will find you stay dirty all day anyway because of the dirt and heat. We have our own room but concrete walls so hanging anything is not an option. Most of my clothes are still in my suitcase as we have no where to put them. Dishes are done outside in buckets. We have a stove and oven but the oven is expensive to plug in so it stays off. We were taught how to make homemade bread on the stove top =)
Our host family watches lots and lots of TV. We are staying up-to-date on Bold & Beautiful and WWE. Our family is very accommodating and speak relatively good English.

We love you all and will try and update when we get our head above water.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Thank You All!!






Katie and I want to just say thank you to all our friends and family who spilled their hearts to show us how much we meant to them. We had wonderful going away parties, prayers, letters, e-mails and some unnecessary gifts. We cried a lot for those we're leaving. You all are awesome to us. By the way any letters sent to us in Botswana cost (I think) .94. You can mail them to us @

Lucas and Katie Scharmer
Peace Corps Botswana
Private Bag 00243
Gaborone
Botswana

Any letter we receive, will definitely get a reply.