Way behind...

Okay, so I am EXTREMELY far behind in trying to keep up with my blog. This whole experience has been a mind-numbing combination of adjustments, adventures, jet lag, culture shock, language learning, language barriers, driving on the left side of the road, driving in a foreign country in general, no running water, power outages, no inernet, no reception, spotty internet, broken reception, heat exhaustion,

(breathe here)

crazy dreams, sleepless nights, long dinners, being dinner, creepy-crawlies, cool bugs, screaming, whining, jumping, shrieking, goats and cows and wayward dogs, marriage proposals, black scorpion tails, "helpful" monkeys who challenge then flee, and baboons who climb limbs as to hide in the trees.

Clearly, life here never has a dull moment. I have been helping mom get everything together so not only can she profess, but do something as simple as use the library or even park in her assigned lot. The pace of life is excruciating slow at times... mostly when you're trying to accomplish a simple-which often turns out to be not so simple due to the number of lines offices and people involved when trying to approve and turn in a single document-task. Not class but, here we are. Usually, it's a minimum of two days and two visits before your task/end goal is completed. As an example, mom reached her limit of standing in lines a few days again. In an effort to alleviate some of this unnecessary time wasting, she asked me to take care of the "Permission to park at UB overnight or longer" form. I went into the office mom had already located the week before for the gate toggle. This was on Wednesday. I spoke with a very helpful security officer who had me fill out the "Permission to park at UB overnight or longer". However, he couldn't sign because he need his superior to approve it. His superior wouldn't be in until 7:45-8 am Thursday morning. "Come back at 8:30." "I have class at 9. That will be hard to do." After going round and round for a few minutes I was able to come back at any time that suited me. So that's what I did... I came back Thursday morning after Setswana class-yes, I'm trying to learn the language. Boy am I rusty!-only to find out that I had filled the form out incorrectly and actually needed to fill out two forms. So I did that. Yet again had to wait for the superior. This time he wouldn't be in til 11:00 so come back then. All fine and dandy except we were supposed to be headed back home by then. *Sigh*.

Thankfully, mom was running around touching base with the OIEP people who work with and organize the incoming international students. Always important to keep up relations in Botswana! But that also put us to 11:00 so we could get parking permission. Low and behold he just ended up signing the forms himself. Because he mis-signed one of the sheets I had to fill out a fourth sheet. I just had to laugh. Then it was off to maintenance to get the final signature after we determine where we wanted to park, and then we had to go back to security to drop off one form so they had a copy........ hahahahahahahaha I tried. I really did. Mom was done. Cooked. Finito. Errands to run, wanted to get ready for our weekend trip to Mochudi with the students, did not want to do any more. Needless to say we never made it back to the security with any completed forms. We decided to let Keston learn how to drive in one day and drop us off so we didn't have to leave the van.

Side note that I should have written about earlier: Keston is one of mom's formers students who is here to work with Frank Taylor, one of our business partners. Keston arrived two days ago and will spend the weekend more or less alone.... with the van. Hmmm.... Hopefully all involved come back in one piece!
So. Here I am rambling on about random things. Power went out so none of us could work on via internet. I'm brain dead and I will be starting work with Frank shortly. Holy cowabunga! I don't know how mom does it all it time!

Until next time. I'll try to fill in the gaps. Maybe do a picture book instead!