Friday

We got to the internet cafe too late for me to blog yesterday, so I'm catching up.

Yesterday was a busy busy day! We showed up at the library at 7am and soon got into a double cab truck to head to Kanye, a village about an hour away. On the way, we stopped in Thamaga, which is about halfway between Molepolole and Cara's village, Mmankgodi. We went to their public library, which already has Sesigo, and checked it out. It was nice!

I should back up--Sesigo is the Setswana word for a pot in which they stored grain in the old days. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded an initiative in several countries to put free internet in public libraries, and Sesigo is the name Botswana chose for theirs--the internet is a store for intellectual sustenance like a jar is for physical sustenance.

We loaded two Thamaga staff members into the truck bed and headed to Kanye. Although we were almost an hour late, the program still hadn't started. Kanye's library is launching its Sesigo program, and they were kind of the seat for a big Botswanan National Library Service ceremony/celebration. We met a bunch of folks from Sesigo, BNLS, and the community before grabbing seats for what turned out to be a loooong ceremony in Setswana. The kgosi spoke, as did a Southern District Councilman, the director of BNLS, etc. A choir of BNLS staff sang a few songs--one was a really cute one with lyrics written just for the occasion, about giving thanks for the internet. After that, we milled around. A Sesigo rep did demos of Skype, Facebook, and Google Earth on a big projector, all of which was new to most of the audience. The Kanye police were there, demonstrating their new breathalyzers. Not sure why, but that was a hit. We also met directors from other village libraries.

Then we all loaded in a truck to go to an official luncheon. Ashley and I had gotten invites, but Max hadn't. He couldn't enter without one, so we headed home, stopping in Moshupa on the way to see their library and Sesigo computers. By the time we got dropped off at home for lunch, we'd been on the move for 6.5 hours already!

Max wasn't sure if kids would be coming, since they hadn't the day before, but he soon texted that a group would, indeed, be showing up, so Ashley and I headed back to the library. While we waited for the kids, Max explained that there had been miscommunication, and we would be switching to just 2 groups who would each come twice a week instead of 5 groups once a week. When the kids showed up, it became clear that this scheme had already somehow started. All the kids had come before,and Ashley and I hadn't planned a new lesson. Eek!

We ended up just changing the composition to one about family. The kids seemed to have a lot of trouble with new words--like "sibling"--and directions. We finally got going. When we heard the essays, it seems quit a few kids had fathers who had died recently. Chances are that the cause was HIV/AIDS. Pretty crazy, the impact of the disease.

We ended up walking homewards with the kids for about a half hour, and somewhat to our surprise, they were suddenly dynamic, excited, funny, lively, and MUCH better at English. It turns out they are TERRIFIED of school situations, I guess. After all, at least some kids get beaten at school every day... It was good to get to know them a little as people instead of scared students. I hope they can bring some of that personality to class next week.