So, I'm a third of the way through my time in Mochudi and I'm having a love/hate experience here.

My job is amazing. In the mornings (most mornings) I take a bus to a nearby village called Phakalane, which is literally the Beverly Hills of Botswana. Every house is huge and has a manicured lawn and whatnot. The house I work in has marble floors and a swimming pool. It certainly causes quiet the disconnect.

In Phakalane I'm working at the Stepping Stones director's house. They're in the process of creating a new program that will be implemented at Stepping Stones and then hopefully in similar programs all around the world. I'm helping them type up lesson plans and activities for this program. Then, in the afternoons, I head back to Mochudi and spend my time with the kids. I tutor and just hang out with them, but soon I will be starting a drama program. Hopefully I'll get the kids started on writing a short play that one of the other staff members can help with when I leave.

So, work is the love part of my relationship with Mochudi. My host family constitutes the other part (and hate is definitely too strong a word to use). My host mother doesn't really talk to me at all and she really likes to demand things from me. For example, yesterday I bought some snacks at the grocery store and had them in my purse. My purse was on the couch and my mom picks it up, goes through it, pulls out a piece of bread that I bought and says "Give me this." I said no, and she said "you can keep the other things. Give me this." and started to take the bread out of the bag. I told her she could have a piece, but that I wanted it. She took half of it, ate it, and then said she didn't like it. She also likes to ask for my phone to call someone because she has no airtime. I don't know. It's not the worst thing in the world, but I really just don't like to spend time in my house. I start to go crazy very quickly when I'm there.

Many of my friends are having a hard time in Mochudi as well. I think we're just at the point in our cultural adjustment where the culture and location stop being romanticized and become more real. It's definitely a transition period. But over all, my experience here is still highly positive.

That's all for now, I guess. More to come soon.