Getting ready to move

Today is a shopping day in Gabs...well, to be honest it is a "free day"...our driver, Ephraim, has been correcting me all morning when I call it a shopping day. I told him that I felt "free to shop" but he seems only mildly amused. He doesn't want us coming back with big packages, but it's already a little too late for that! Mostly I have been buying curtains and knives for my house...not quite sure why those are my priorities, but they are! My friends and I are all running around trying to find curtains that aren't too ghastly and also trying to price other stuff that we may need. I am hoping that my driver from Mochudi will be able to take me shopping again on Wednesday (when he drives me to Mochudi) so that I can get some other "essentials". Needless to say, I am nesting in Botswana...sometimes it feels like nervous activity, but mostly it feels like I'm trying to make it my home.
We all swear into peace corps tomorrow...it should be an exciting day, and then all of us are concentrating on packing our things and getting ready to move away. We have a restriction that we're not allowed to leave our villages for the first 2 months (that way we make it home), so a lot of us are concentrating on getting the basics while we are in Gabs. Mochudi is very close to gabs so anything that I really need from Gabs will have to wait for the first 2 months, but I can also find a lot of things in Mochudi! I brought a CD with some pictures on it to update this blog with, but unfortunately they don't allow it at the internet cafe I am at...they do, however, allow flash drives, so I will plan on that for the future!
I have to say goodbye to my host family this week. It's going to be very hard because I have come to really rely on them and have become very close to them. One of my sisters in convinced that she is going to live with me...I've been trying to let her down easy! My brothers are very protective of me, which is cute...they are both only a couple of years younger than me, but they difinitely like to treat me like a younger sister! I love it, and I'm pretty sure that they will come to visit me when they can. I have three little boys in my household that I am going to miss immensley. I've gotten used to getting a running hug everytime I enter the house, so that's going to be missed greatly! Our dog "no name" (I gave him this name when I first moved into the house...I was told he had no name, and now I love that everyone calls him "no name") he has taken to jumping on me and licking me every chance he gets...my brother was telling me last night how much the dog is going to miss me too! I also named some chickens that we had (Maize and Seeds...cause that's what they eat), but they have mysteriously dissapeared. I was told that they went to my grandmother's house...but I am highly suspicious of this story.

My Sister, Warona, and I

It's great for me to see how fast I have become attached to my family, I think it helps remind me that it just takes time to feel at home...so I look forward to making another home in Mochudi!
I will try to update again soon, I'm still looking for the "right connections" in Mochudi for the internet, but hopefully it won't take me too long to figure out!