The Girls

     Yarrow and I have acquired a posse. Wherever we go in Ramotswa, we are continuously trailed by a sizeable group of adolescent Batswana girls. They somehow seem to be able to locate us no matter where we are in the village. They follow us to the grocery store, to work…they even follow us home. They grab longingly at our straight hair and tell us how beautiful our white skin is. They tell us that they hate their dark skin. They are so affected by the media that they don’t even realize how exotically gorgeous they are; I constantly reassure them.

            When I pull out my camera they strike a pose—just like the girls on America’s Next Top Model. They push each other out of the way, fighting for the spotlight. They laugh uncontrollably at everything we say. They never ask us any questions. Silence is never awkward—it’s filled with their high-pitched nervous laughter. I crocheted them all red headbands. Now they wear them all over town like some sort of girl band… or a gang. 

Yarrow, Leidso and Hala

            Then there’s the girl that lives below us. Her name is Hala... she’s eleven, but looks about seven. She has a little brother named Leidso… he’s five, but looks about three. Hala is a self-sufficient little lady—she does her own dishes, washes her clothes by hand, sweeps the floor, cooks for herself and takes care of Leidso. Whenever we get home from work, Hala and Leidso are always there to greet us. They come running down the driveway with wide-open arms, smiles and endless giggles. Needless to say, we’re smitten.

            The past two days have been spent performing some real, grueling manual labor. We are clearing the soccer field, an ominous task that has been looming over the program coordinators’ heads for the past few months—it’s extremely overgrown and unruly. We sweat under the hot African sun as we drill our shovels into the hard red earth, attempting to clear out the relentless grass and weeds. It’s hard work, but it feels good to work hard. Aside from that, Yarrow and I have been working on creating some AIDS awareness pamphlets and brochures. We’ve translated them from English to Setswana (Botswana’s national language) with the help of our Batswana friends. It’s been fun and difficult… turns out Setswana is a hard language to translate...especially when it comes down to translating AIDS-related, sexual terms. For example, the word ‘semen’ translates into a seven-word sentence in Setswana! So, as you can imagine, we’ve got our work cut out for us… 

So, all is well on the African front. Ta-ta for now!