Grandma Love in Botswana

Today at tea time I got two birthday cards from my grandmothers! So sweet. It was such a pleasant surprise. My grandma Bieber included a nice letter detailing the usual goings-on in Omro, and I was happy to hear that the crops are growing nicely. My grandma Hubing sent a nice picture of all of my aunts and uncles and it was wonderful to see a current photo of their smiling faces.

Professor Mnjama came to visit us, finally, after not seeing or hearing from him after the first week we were here! He went home to Kenya for a couple of weeks, and then I guess he went to Zimbabwe and South Africa, too. We told him what we had been working on, but the whole meeting was pretty short. He was pretty matter-of-fact and straight to the point about things. He asked a question about children taking out materials, which they don't really. Children need to have a parent come in a sign for them which I think deters a lot of kids from getting library cards. Mnjama thought that parents really need to be encouraged to promote reading with their child, which is true. So I sort of half started putting together an idea for a pamphlet on the benefits of reading to and encouraging your child to read. I didn't get very far, though, because it got me to thinking about way too big of ideas surrounding how different cultures think about childhood and how they relate to their children. I was reading this book we have at the library "Culture Shock: USA," and it had a section on how we treat our children, how we give them a lot of say about what they do and how they think. It gave a scenario of a parent sitting in a park with a tired and crabby child, and asking them "Should we go home now?" and the child replying "No," so they just continue to sit there. The book was saying that some parents from different culture just don't understand an exchange like that...they think that children so young can't possibly know what's good for them, and can't be trusted with all decisions. Anyways, that's too big a thought to tackle in the remainder of the time I have left here, but I think I might go ahead with the pamphlet just in case it might be useful. We'll see, I might get wrapped up in something else.

Last night while Ray and I were fixing dinner for the family, I heard the Kgosi say "Ashley!" so I went into the living room to find that the coverage from the Sesigo launch 2 weeks ago finally made it onto the nightly news! There I was in a shot of the audience! This morning when I got to the library Lebogang immediately said "I saw you on the news!" So, I actually made it onto Btv, oh yeah.

This weekend we don't have any major plans. Next week Ethelene from the UW is coming for her site visit, so we're meeting with her on Monday morning at our house. We're going to spend time with the Kgosi and Mma first, then onto the library to meet with Max. I'm looking forward to seeing a friendly Madisonian face and getting to share our experiences so far with her in person!