The Sabbath

The church here is right across the street from the Kanye SDA Hospital.  It was week 12 of the quarter and they had a communion service that weekend.  The thing is, it was freezing cold and some of us had multiple layers over our feet.  I felt bad feeling this way, but I didn't really want to participate because of how inconvenient it was and how cold the weather was.  However, Kristen needed a partner, and I thought that I should, so I did :)

Over 300 people came to church.  The service was in English and Setswana (so it was really long).  Again, for some reason, I bit my tongue over and over again to stay awake.  The singing was beautiful except when the pianist started playing.  The hymnals were never more beautiful because of their voices and harmonies.  Otherwise, the church service seemed exactly the same as any SDA church service.

After church, we had a delicious lunch and then hiked to a lake of a dam.  The weather finally warmed up to a nice 65F, I'm guessing.  The lake was nice, but there was so much trash there.  There was a lot of trash everywhere in general.  I love how people passing by always say "Hello" but it is scary at the same time.  I'm such a scaredy cat!

After dinner, the whole team of students played Charades, Catch Phrase, Black Magic, Psychology, and a motion game that Frances taught.  It was a blast to say the least :) I think we have a fun and creative group of girls and boy.

The stars are amazing out here.  It's weird because there are different constellations down here than there are up in the US.  I don't know my constellations, but I can tell that the arrangements of stars were different than I am used to.  We saw the "Southern Cross" - a constellation you can only see apparently in the southern hemisphere.  

Getting enough rest is definitely a challenge, but I guess that's normal. 

On Sunday, we did our machine laundry (wahoo!) and went shopping in Kanye.  The stores all of really similar products.  A lot of the products are really cheap.  I saw Converse for P50 (~$8) and Nike sweatshirts for about the same price.  They look real to me, but I'm the last person in the world that can discern the difference between real and fake products.  Food, however, generally is the same price as they are here. 

During our little hike to Kanye today, I totally stepped right into a fresh load of cow pie.  It was nice a smooshy. 

P.S. I totally forgot to write about the hospital and clinics in the last entry.  All of the clinics that we've seen are run by WHO (the World Health Organization).  Their signature is bright orange.  All the building funded by or run by WHO is bright orange (like my orange pants-bright). 

One annoying part of eating at the hostel is that we have to bring our own utensils from our rooms for every meal.  So after we come back from a trip to town, we can't directly walk into the cafeteria, but we have to climb up the stairs to our rooms and bring them back down to eat.  After wards, we have to clean our own utensils too.  I suppose that isn't really much to complain about...

Tomorrow, we start our clinicals.  I'm scared because I feel like I forgot all of my nursing skills and knowledge.  I hope that I am not completely useless there...