48 years to the day since we the British gave Botswana back to its people. At the time it was a sparsly populated country with a poor economic structure. However since independence it has flourished through its trade in diamonds and cattle. Also with the help of the currently elected political party it has become one of the most stable countries in Africa. A lot of the money made through trade industry has been re-invested into the countries infrastructure, which, when thought of in comparrison to other nearby African countries, it shows in an abundance.
For the people of Botswana independence day means a public holiday. This meant for us that there were no lessons to teach, however, instead we held an independance day competition, members from each standard (5, 6, 7) were chosen to compete in each catagory and the winner from each catagory will be taken on a camping trip where they will enjoy good food and games. The catagories included English spelling, English reading, Setswana spelling, Setswana reading and Maths. We, the volunteers, were the judges and the boys had a lot of fun competing.
After the competition we enjoyed some great food which was prepared by the boys, followed by a boat trip on the okavango river with the younger boys in the afternoon;
The boys enjoyed the restful day and we enjoyed spending time with them, we are still slowly building a relationship of trust and respect with the boys and, as this happens, we are slowly starting to get to know the real them and where they have come from. Many of the boys here have not had the best start in life and a few have never even attented any kind of formal education before they came to BBM. I feel I have almost been ignorant towards this as on the face of it you would not really be able to distinguish between them and other boys I have met of the same age.
On a side note, I'm wondering if readers of my blog would be so kind as to give me some feedback. Let me know what you do and dont like and what you would like to hear more or less of.
More content to follow in due course, ✌️
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