And then there were 8

Most of the CWRU ENGR students left yesterday morning and the rest are leaving today, giving the researchers a week to ourselves.  We have big plans:  South Africa vs. Botswana qualifier game, going to see a movie, karaoke, writing reports... we haven't sorted all of our plans out, but those few are on the list.

For lunch, we celebrated Andrew S.'s birthday with a cake and giant candle!  Glad the candle got multiple uses.  This cake was good (of course it was, I picked it out!) and did not taste of chemicals and horseradish.

In the afternoon, Andrew, Leslie, and Maren joined me and Zee on a trip to Lentsweletau.  It was a very eventful afternoon surveying the people.  We spoke with an elder who offered us a watermelon.  He gave us a nice background on the village and was very knowledgeable seeing as he had served as a chancellor for the village (kind of like the local government).  Another family gave us a quick ride on a donkey taxi.  We also had fun playing with little kids at some of the other houses.  Also, a lot of the people assumed Andrew was from China and were confused when he introduced himself.  Maren and I were quickly tagged as Americans, and people weren't really sure about Leslie.  You can imagine how we turned this into a lot of jokes about Andrew.

Once we returned, the research team, the remaining ENGR students, Kevin (UB) and Lebo went to Bull and Bush for Ribs night.  It was a nice restaurant with an entertaining DJ.  Leslie and I split a rack of ribs, which was an excellent life choice.  A few of you know my habits of finishing meals at restaurants.  As we waited for the bus back to UB, Maren and Leslie had the DJ sing 'happy birthday' to Andrew and make him dance a little.  The rest of us kept it groovy all the way out the door as the bus arrived.

Upon returning to campus, Andrew rushed over to the Physics block to start making measurements as it was a full moon.  The rest of the world besides Europe and Africa were able to see a partial lunar eclipse, but I was not informed of this until after following Andrew over to the roof with Dry (UB).  O well, it was a nice,clear night as usual.

Today, Zee and I will head out to the villages again in hopes of collecting enough data to publish.

Here are some recent pictures.

Waiting for grocery shopping Sunday.  An intriguing game of how high can you balance the tape measure.

Some intense grocery shopping.

Zee and I looking classy for the presentations.

These children who are always playing near our dorms had shoeboxs sent through the Samaritan's Purse- Operation Christmas Child.  I've packed one of these in the past, so it was cool to see them on the receiving end.

We'll probably go karaoke-ing tonight, so I'm sure I'll have some stories from that.

Until next time,

M.e.