Weekend update

This weekend I didn't actually do a Hell of a lot. Thabang came over on Friday, at which point he tried to teach me some Sotho songs. It was fun, but I've already forgotten how most of them go. I mean, I remember parts of them, but not the whole thing. Saturday we went to Welverdiend and just walked around, visited his family (who loves me) and some of his friends. I tried chips and fat kook for the first time together, and they were good. Saturday evening we went back to campus for the Earth Hour event (darkness, speech, toasting marshmallows), which I helped plan and also had to be there to document. It was actually a rather nice time, despite my complete freak-out over ants crawling on me in the dark and biting me. Thabang slept over again and on Sunday he helped me take out my braids. This was nearly as big a project as getting them put in. My hair was quite poofy afterwards, but that didn't last long (and no, there aren't any pictures).

Monday was back to work again, and I more or less just did the same things so far that I did last week, although in varying stages of progress.

The FGASA (Field Guide Association of South Africa) students had their big, final test today and only 2 out of 9 passed the written portion and can go on to their practical portion tomorrow. Either way, they'll all be gone by the end of the week, which makes me sad. I really liked that group. They were different than all the other short-course students in that they were nice, mature enough, fun, and easy-going. They weren't clique-ish or creepy or annoying, which was really refreshing.

This upcoming weekend is Easter weekend, which is a 4-day weekend here in South Africa (we get both Friday and Monday off). I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do, although there are vague plans to go someplace with Thabang's family and drink home-made marula beer. In any case, I'll keep you posted.

God, I've been so freaking busy!

Last week I did a bunch of cataloging, covering, labeling, and shelving of children's books and environmental reports. We also got in a bunch of new nature DVDs and some books and magazines that it's my job to process completely. Add to that some more price comparison shopping for potential future books, helping students find what they need, and checking for/deleting missing books, and you have yourself a very busy week at the library.

And on top of that, I've got my community outreach projects.

I helped Jeremiah, the community outreach director, plan, execute, document, and later analyze a community clean-up project. A youth group in Welverdiend wanted to clean up trash on the road leading from the town past the college gate into the park, but they needed resources (transport, trash bags, protection from wild animals, water, food). We, the college, helped, and also brought in other local organizations to back the project. As a librarian, I went along on the actual clean-up day with the library's camera and took pictures and notes. I'm currently in the middle of drafting a report on the whole process for use in future community outreach endeavors, but I had to stop due to the inability to concentrate this afternoon because of the dead squirrel mentioned in the previous post.

I'm also still trying to secure funding and/or books for a mobile library for the village, but I feel like that's not actually going to happen. I keep getting no-responses or “I'm sorry...” responses, and I'm running out of time to set something like this in motion before I return to the States. I finally figured out what I wanted to do here, and I'm not here long enough to actually do it. Ugh. It was stupid of me to even hope that I could make any kind of lasting difference down here.

Anyway, at least the weekend was fun, for the most part. Thabang came over on Friday night. On Saturday I went out with Vivian and few of her friends from the village. We had a braai at a game lodge nearby. There was food, music, drinks, and general silliness. Good times. Sunday Thabang came over again, and gave me a belated birthday present of really pretty beaded necklace, made locally.

I'm so not looking forward to the rest of the week. I need an extra day just to catch up on sleep.