Home stay

Tomorrow will be the first day of my nine day home stay in a village an hour outside of Gaborone: Mochudi! I have not met the family that I am staying with. All 12 CIEE members are staying with separate families in the same village. Some of us are closer to each other than others. I, for example, am five minutes walking distance from a friend who is staying with a single mother, a teacher, who has a 12-year-old son.

Here is the information I was given about my family:

- Mma Modimakwane
- Mom and dad in their 60s and 70s
- Christina, 47-year-old daughter
- Josephine, 40-year-old daughter, works in Gabs with the Botswana Defence Force
- Josephine's daughters are 18 and 13. The 18-year-old studies Accounting at UB and lives on campus. The 13-year-old is in Form 1 in Mochudi.
- Electricity
- Piped water
- Indoor bathroom/toilet

We will be with our families from tomorrow morning until Monday morning, when we will be taking an hour-long combi route back to UB for class. This means we will be getting up at sunrise and picking up combis starting at about 6:00 a.m. Then after class, we will return to our families to help around the house with chores or with preparing dinner or whatever else needs to be done. Bedtime is most likely sunset.

We will go to the cattle post at least once, some of us more than others. We will go to church once or twice, since we will be with them for two Sundays.

The female students have to wear long skirts and dresses all week; the male students - pants.

On the last Sunday of our home stay, Batsi said there is usually a party thrown for the students. That Sunday will be my birthday, so I'm pretty pumped for that. Maybe they'll kill a chicken for me, or give me a couple cattle.