After a long journey beginning at 4:45 a.m. , we are in Gaborone. We left the Team House early yesterday morning to catch a 7 a.m. flight to Joburg (as Johannesburg is called in this part of the world). Arriving there, we met up with our drivers and their "Sprinters" ( 16 passenger vans), we headed toward Gaborone. We were blessed to see a many marvelous views of the rolling African countryside. We passed through the border control and moved into Botswana around 5 p.m.
We arrived at the Big Five Lodge and had a wonderful buffet meal prepared for us by the staff since arrived late. Some people staying in the hotel for a conference thought it was so good that started eating before us! There was plenty to go around, though, and it was a nice meal at the end of they day.
No pictures today because I brought the wrong cable with me to the internet cafe. I'll load more pictures for you the next time I get to log on to the internet. We will have very sporadic internet access here. We do not have any in the Big Five Lodge, yes, the students are going through withdrawal, but I plan to carve out a couple of minutes every other day or so to update all of you.
In short, our wonderful journey continues. As I write this, one group of students is at the Kamogela Orphans and Vulnerable Children's Daycare working with 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old children who have either been orphaned or live in a home that is deeply impoverished and with a single or gravely ill parent. The other group of students is working at the SOS Children's Project. There are pictures of both of those sites from my trip in February in the flickr link to the left side of this blog. This afternoon we head to the Holy Cross Hospice to view their facility and to prepare for working with them tomorrow.
Watch for more news and insights from the students! We are about halfway into our journey.