First week of placements

After having travelled around in the car all day on Tuesday, we were a little worried about what the rest of the week would be like at the Women's Shelter.

Wednesday, we went to the Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Program in Lobatse. There, we heard a few speakers on relevant topics and watched Zodwa, an employee at the shelter, give a presentation about our initiatives. The day was long, but lunch was included! We also got to introduce ourselves to those present at the conference and explain why we were there.

Thursday, we had an awesome opportunity to spend some more time at the shelter itself. We got to see the kids and have some more discussions with the women. I went with "mother" (the shelter's house mother) to go buy groceries for the women. She said that the women take turns cooking and cleaning; she buys groceries every 2 weeks.

Today, we finished up a computer studies class that we'd started yesterday. We are going to teach the women at the shelter about the hardware of a computer so that they can move on to understanding how to use a computer. This will be a very useful skill set for them once they leave the shelter. We also began compiling a list of potential U.S. donors to whom we will send letters explaining the mission of the shelter and the financial need.

We compiled our expectations and goals into a project plan for the director of the shelter.

In the evenings we've been doing a wide variety of things. On Wednesday night, we played catchphrase in the boys' room. Last night we watched Brazil play South Africa in soccer (cheering for South Africa, of course.) Tonight, we are planning on going back to the restaurant where we watched the game and having pizza for dinner! Yum!