She was able to explain some things to us and we had a fun time sharing stories about the guys who hit on us American students because she says they see us and they think money and the stereotypes of American girls they see on TV. She also was able to tell us more about how HIV has affected dating here, since Botswana has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. One of the Penn girls had a guy show her his HIV test booklet when he was hitting on her to show her that he was negative. Carol says that lots of guys do that now, and when they hit on you sometimes they ask you what you're status is, meaning HIV not whether you're single. But you still have to be extremely careful, since unless the test was done that day, you don't really know.
She also makes me feel really bad for complaining about internet, since she says she sometimes checks her e-mail only about once month. That's a complete shock to us American internet addicts. She says she doesn't really need it since everyone she wants to talk to is local and she can just call or text. We made her a Facebook last night though so she can talk to us when after we leave :) We also had fun showing her our favorite ridiculous Youtube videos, since she had never seen them before.
She's also never seen snow or the ocean. She thinks snow is cold but she's scared of how cold it is, since she thinks its unbearable when it gets down to 45 F at night during the winter. I wish she could come visit us in America, which she wants to. But its so expensive; I mean I wouldn't be able to afford to travel that far without Penn providing a stipend for my flight and lodging. UB is only able to help a couple students every year go abroad, and its very competitive and difficult.
Anyway, Carol is definitely one of my new favorite people. It's my goal to be able to say her last name correctly, because her tribe uses clicks in their language and its very hard for my American mouth to say!
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