Thursday, November 15, 2007

CREATIVITY ESCAPES ME

So life here is great. Awesome, really!
Last week, school ended so this week I've just been hanging out doing not a whole lot...hanging out with Laura (Tebogo) and doing nothing... it's been pretty awesome.

Um...I joined a choir! It's officially what I'm doing for my Independent Study Project. It's this choir called KTM and it's sort of funny because they're doing Christmas Carols right now so I know most of the music. Actually, the conductor wants to talk to me because he says he's not sure if I should stay with them since they're not doing any Setswana music right now. I mean, I'm thinking I'm going to ask my program director if there's any other choirs I could join as well as this one so I could sing traditional music, but even just singing in this one is so different from the choirs at home. The music is COMPLETELY different - there is no treble or bass clef - and no notes! It's written according to do-re-me and it's sort of hard to get used to. That and the way we learn the music is really different, too, so I feel like even if I'm not singing traditional songs, I'm learning something either way.

Last weekend, my mom had this soccer team, the Township Rollers, who are like THE team of Gabs staying at the lodge so I got to go on Saturday and hang out with them and it was awesome! Tebs came along and we went to a football game with them where they were getting in free since they're an organized team, but the people at the stadium were giving them all sorts of crap since me and Laura were quite obviously not on the team. But this one, Not Kago (we thought his name was Kago for a long time, but it's not and we don't remember what it is so we call him Not Kago) told them we were team doctors and the team ushered us in and it was awesome. It was pretty cool sitting with them, too, cuz they're pretty famous-ish and everyone was asking about the game they had the next day against the Police. Then, we went back to the lodge and hung out with some of them some more - we mainly hung out with Chicken (they call him Chicken Nandos cuz his last name is Koko, which is "chicken" in Setswana and Nandos is a chicken place here) and Bernard, who's from Zambia and it was awesome. Bernard kept showing us pictures on his phone of his wife (who he called his queen) and kids, and kissing his phone (btw. they range in age from 17 to 30). And we listened to music on Chicken's phone and talked. We met this guy, Gumgum (they call him Gumgum cuz he likes to listen to his music real loud and all you can hear is "gumgumgumgum") who is the team captain and who is BEAUTIFUL. He hung out for a bit which was awesome and this other kid, Aubrey, who's the 17 year old, came and hung out and he's sort of a brat, but it was fun. And then Bernard got up and was dancing all crazy and Chicken got up and joined him and it was so so so much fun!
Then, the next day, we saw them off to their game and Gumgum was playing music all loud from the combi (of course) so I danced a bit with this kid Lesego (which is funny cuz that's my name) and he and the goalie, Toldo, told us they'd take us out dancing sometime so that's super exciting. We went to their game and they tied 0-0 but it was SO nerveracking because the Police were playing super dirty and the ref wasn't calling much and now that we knew them, we were so worried for them. Ha, but it was awesome.

Oh, and I dyed my hair! (yes, I found a way to dye my hair all the way over here). It's just a blond stripe down the right side of my head, but it's pretty much awesome. My little brother now calls me "Jeff Hardy" because that's a wrestler who they call the "rainbow haired warrior" cuz he has his hair dyed all different colors which is AWESOME because Jeff Hardy is absolutely my favorite wrestler (did I mention that I have become grossly obsessed with WWE RAW here? It's like the best thing ever!). Actually, Nicki and I went to this flea market-type place the other day to try and get Jeff Hardy t-shirts but all they have is J ohn Cena, so this guy we met gave me his number and might import some shirts especially for us from South Africa! Ha!

Sorry I haven't put up any pictures, yet. It's really hard to get my pictures to a computer that has internet, but I have a TON and I can't wait to show them all off. AND. Lots lots of love to my wonderful Dad for being super awesome and cute with his comments and SUPER SHAME on the rest of you who are just living vicariously through me and not telling me so! Tahaha

I LOVE YOU ALL and miss you lots and CAN'T WAIT to come home and show off pictures and presents and happiness! YAY