Well, I guess it should be T-minus 4 days, since I won't actually arrive in Gaborone until Thursday the 19th. For those of you doing the math, yes, I will be en-route for over 24 hours. I leave Philadelphia at 5:15 am Wednesday morning and arrive in Botswana at 12:35 pm Thursday afternoon. This past semester I took a class about sleep and chronobiology, and suffice it to say, my circadian rhythm will be WAY out of wack. Woohoo!
After reading through all my Botswana-related emails, I realized that I don't actually have much information on the details of my internship. I do know that I will be working in Princess Marina Hospital, and that I will be working on a hand hygiene project in the Infection Control Unit. We've been told that we'll get a better idea of what our project will be about once we start working, which will be Tuesday May 24th. I met with the girl who had my position last year, and she said that she spent a lot of her time putting together a report of the condition of hand hygiene in the different wards. From all the good things I've heard from her and others about her internship, I'm really looking forward to starting.
Once all the interns arrive, we'll have a few days to acquaint ourselves with Gabarone and each other. On Monday the 23rd we'll have an in-country orientation at University of Botswana (where the other interns and I will be living) and then we'll go to the Mokolodi Game Reserve for a welcome bbq. I checked out the site and it looks like there are animals everywhere! Including rhinos and cheetahs and giraffes oh my!
http://www.mokolodi.com/
Counting down the days...especially because philly weather SUCKS right now.
