Dumela Botswana!

With less than a week until I leave, I wanted to set up this blog for friends and family to see what kinds of things I am doing during the five months I will be studying abroad.

On New Year’s Eve I will be traveling from Boston to JFK in NY to Johannesburg, South Africa to Gaborone, Botswana. I will be arriving on 1/1/11 to the University of Botswana where I will be studying for spring semester! Gaborone is the capital of Botswana with a population of almost 200,000 and the University of Botswana will have three times the number of students than the University of Hartford with about 15,000 students I believe.

While I am there I will be taking some interesting courses, meeting new people, experiencing a unique culture, and hopefully taking advantage of some once in a life time experiences. I will also be working on an independent honors project through the University of Hartford on the life of a child living in Botswana, focusing mostly on education but also on health, family, culture, and community. I hope to do as much volunteer work as possible as well!

I am nervous, but I seem to be the most optimistic one of all my friends and family. I received some great Christmas presents to use on my trip like a backpack, a telephoto lens for my camera, money for travel, and although I hope I never have to use it, my brother Kelly got me a hot pink bottle of pepper spray. Haha.

I hope this blog allows me to take advantage of the limited time I will be spending on the internet to keep in touch with everyone back home!