Dumela! Let's Learn!

Dumela!

Our Global Navigators have been busy the last two days. We kicked off the week with our first Setswana session. Setswana is the national language of Botswana. We learned basic vocab like dumela (hello), go siame (goodbye/ go well), and ke itumetse (I am happy). After practicing Setswana, we played games with our CIEE student volunteers. We played koi (jump rope), suna baby (dodge ball), mhele, dibeke and many more. We learned that children used recycled material to make these toys. This was a lesson in how Batswana (the people of Botswana) value and practice conservation.

The next day, we kicked it off with a lesson on ecosystems and their services. To reinforce the lesson and let the Global Navigators see examples of ecosystem services, they went on a nature walk in Mokolodi Nature Reserve. Of course, we had to make a pit stop by Thutho, the cheetah, to say hello. Speaking of Setswana, Thutho means education! After seeing Thutho, we continued on our trek and ended up with a great view of the park. The views up here are spectacular, the air and even the trees are different here! It sure is surreal being at Mokolodi. We had a little moment of silence to take it all in and goodness!! We have never felt so at peace and in love with the place as we did in that moment. Unfortunately, the fairytale had to come to an end as we made our way back down to the Education Center. We presented our findings on ecosystem services in the reserve (which we crushed by the way!!). After a long day out in the wild, we showed off our amazing dance skills during dance class with Tboss! A couple of us may have two left feet but we finally managed to find our rythm! As I said: a busy two days! Stay tuned for our next adventure.