Happy Fourth of July!

I can't believe its actually July, what in the world happened to June? I guess time flies when you are having fun...

So lets see...last weekend we went to Livingstone to pick up Mrs. Thomas, our professors wife. While there we did the touristy thing too...we went to see Victoria Falls and went on a Safari in Botswanna and all that good stuff. Victoria Falls is amazing, there was a whole lot of water this year so it was even more spectacular than last time. We hiked down to the bottom again which was great and got soaked on the bridge across. Saturday we went on our Safari which was great! We saw tons of elephants, giraffe's, hippos, monkeys, and we even saw some lions! We were right at the turn around point and we turned a corner and there were four lions, two males and two females. It was absolutely amazing, our hearts were beating out of our chests. One of the males did not appreciate our presence and growled at us and half lunged our direction so we high tailed it out of there. It was amazing though. Monday we all went and did the gorge swing. There is this huge gorge and they have rappeling (no idea how to spell that) and a zipline across and then they have the actual gorge swing. So we progressed gradually up to that. The gorge swing is literally stepping off a 53 meter cliff into thin air and freefalling. It was INSANE!! You can't help but scream in the beginning and then when you think about screaming you can't. It was amazing...crazy crazy crazy. We have excellent video and pictures of all of us dont you worry!

The teaching is going really well. We gave our first test this week. The kids did pretty well, a lot of very decent grades which is always good when they understand what the heck you are talking about. Especially if this is my first time teaching and we were simply handed a textbook, told to invent a ciriculum and teach in a second language to all of these kids with minimal English skills! I'm having a blast teaching, the students are really fun, after the test we just talked about all sorts of stuff from food and marriage in the States to music and holidays.

So since today is the fourth...we decided to celebrate a bit! We're having some quality dining options tonight. Fried chicken (we bought and killed a chicken yesterday), mashed potatoes, apple pie and potentially ice cream which we are currently trying to figure out. It should be delicious and a nice change from our usual diet of rice/corn based products and veggies, which is delicious, but there's only so many ways in which to combine such ingredients!

Deep thought for the week--I believe I sell myself short a great deal of the time. I don't do things because I am too scared. Too scared of what people will think, of how I will look, of the fact that maybe its too hard or I am under-qualified, or maybe that I will look foolish, or maybe just scared because its out of my box. There are so many things here that I have done that are sooooo far out of my box its not even funny. Teaching is one. I hate standing up in front of people, I hate hearing myself talk that long, and I never thought I would be remotely good at it. Or jumping off a cliff, which was terrifying but fantastic. Don't sell yourself short on experiences just because they are scary. Yes people will laugh (here they laugh at us allll the time, pretty much everytime you open your mouth), but maybe you should learn to take yourself less seriously. Yes things will stretch you, but you don't know what you are made of until you do something you thought you previously couldn't. Yes maybe things will be hard but push yourself, you might surprise yourself. I mean don't go crazy, but don't wimp out and then regret that you did later. Carpe diem my friends because you might not ever find another time where you are at the same place as you are now ever again.

And now...the apple pie is calling to me...