Dumela Botswana!

WE ARE HERE!!!

After a 14 hour flight from NYC to Johannesburg, an 8 hour layover, and a 40 minute flight to Gaborone, we have all safely arrived in Botswana. All of our luggage arrived with us, and we had no problems along the way! Besides being totally exhausted, it has been a smooth trip!

Also, we started out the trip right by being on the plane with some sort of public officials or diplomats. They were welcomed at the airport with a red carpet lined with some vases of flowers. (We considered the possibility that these were really to welcome us, however.) There was also a large group of women waiting to welcome them -- wearing red uniform outfits. Quite a lot of fanfair for our first 5 minutes in Botswana!

All is well! Tomorrow, we are meeting our University of Botswana buddies. We have been paired with other students so that they can help be our guides to a new place. It should be a great experience to make some friends and explore the city with people who know it best. For now, sleep!

Julianne resting during the long layover in the Johannesburg airport!

One week away!

As the trip nears, we are squeezing in a few more planning meetings and continuing to take donations! In just the last few days, we have had some wonderful donations that are really getting us close to our goal. We've had some questions about where the money will go, and we wanted to clarify some of the ways the donations have been used in the past to get you excited about contributing!

After spending some time in the country and interacting with various groups and organizations, groups in previous years have identified specific needs or programs to put the funding towards.  For example, in the past, a group was involved with an orphanage in Gaborone. To save money on food costs, the staff began growing vegetables. However, the orphanage did not have the proper gardening supplies, so the Penn nursing students decided to use part of the funding they brought to help supply tools, which would then positively impact the health and nutrition of those children. Another year, students were involved with a sort of program where women were learning various crafts and skills so that they could make money on their own. One project in particular was teaching sewing, but they did not have access to the fabric they needed to support the women in their learning and practice. Thus, the students decided to put some money toward the purchase of fabrics and other supplies to support the women learning a craft that would have long-term economic benefits in their lives.

We hope this helps clarify our goals for fundraising, and we certainly look forward to sharing our plans with everyone as we identify needs in the communities!

Looking forward to our first in-country updates!!

Preparations and Fundraising

My name is Tiffany, and I am also one of the students in the Botswana group! I wanted to thank everyone so far for all the donations -- it is a great start in such a short time! We are extremely grateful and look forward to sharing the creative ways we use the funding we do receive.

In other news, we have been meeting as a group and have many more preparation meetings to come. Penn is offering a Penn-Botswana partnership orientation today as well. In these last few weeks, we will be working on clinical competencies, language knowledge, and logistical planning so that we can be ready to provide care and set up the best learning environment that we can.

Thanks for the continued support!