The Internship

While completing our final semester in the Masters program at the UT School of Social Work, our roles at Botshabelo will be as Clinical Social Worker interns. There we will participate in therapeutic processes with children of all ages, as well as adults and families in the village that surrounds the orphanage. Though we are not quite sure what our days will look like...we are certain that our time in South Africa will be an incredible journey filled with joy, challenge, uncertainty, connection, learning, peace, laughter, sadness, and most importantly, growth.


About Botshabelo

The Cloete family started Botshabelo 20 years ago--out of the darkness of apartheid--where Con and Marian (the couple) spent their entire life's savings to care for the children of South Africa. Con and Marian, along with their three adult daughters, their partners, and their children, established Botshabelo as a place where about 150 children without families could have a place to belong. Ilene and Ayla will also call Botshabelo home for the next four months, living and working alongside these amazing individuals.
Since 1990, Botshabelo has worked to become a self-sustaining community and, more importantly, a place of safety and family to South Africa's AIDS orphans and economic orphans. The community includes an orphanage, school, village, medical clinic and organic farm.

To learn more about our new home, visit: www.botshabelo.org

Friday, January 8, 2010

T minus 8 days

hi everyone-
this is my first attempt at blogging, and its 2am and i think i have succeeded! yay (little victories) a quick note on the name: we were trying to look up words in tswana- the native language of the area we will be in- and tried to look up "blog." we looked for a few hours, but finding an english to tswana free online translator isnt so easy, so we gave up. hence the blog name: how do you say blog in tswana (we are very aware it is probably just 'blog'- but thats not fun now is it).
so update on where we are at: ilene hasn't received her visa yet (or been able to connect with the embassy to find her status) and I haven't received my financial aid. on the plus side i have a middle aged man from norway now living in my home and ilene has a hot weekend away with her man. on the minus side ilene and i had lunch today and spent an hour talking about our ridiculous to-do lists (for example: ilene is charged with getting the malaria meds, and i get to go to the pharmacy to pick up the dr prescibed travelers diahrrea meds- awesome) and how overwhelmed we are. but on the plus side a commercial for little miss perfect just came on and i suddenly feel better about myself.
i clearly need to not be typing any more tonight. there is a good chance i will read this tomorrow and decide i have embarrassed myself.
goodnight! ayla, in austin
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