Cliche, I know.  But, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be on a plane to Africa!  Yikes.

In any event, welcome to my (our? I’m not sure if it filters other BTB Lesotho interns) blog, a running commentary about the experiences of living in Africa and doing our part to make a difference in this world.  With such a noble goal, it’s easy to become cliche.  Rest assured, I will do my best to keep this account as un-cliche as possible.  Here goes nothing.

Starting Monday when we arrive in Maseru, Robby Palm and I will set to work getting situated with the other four BTB interns.  Robby and I will be working as a team at two locations, the Family Art and Literacy Center in Khubetsoana and Masianokeng High School in Masianokeng.  We will be teaching a microenterprise course in Masianokeng and working as business consultants (fancy title that means we’re really not exactly sure what we’re going to do) at the Family Art and Literacy Center.

I think my mantra for this entire adventure will be flexibility.  From a program standpoint, our group built the microenterprise course based on flexibility, relying on its ability to adapt to situations when we fail to forsee conditions that necessitate change.  On a personal level, our internship orientation had training on culture shock to prepare us for the differences, but I remember the difficulty I had moving from Chicago to Houston.  I got better at dealing with differences by being flexible and open-minded.  I hope the same will hold true in Lesotho.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you can think of anything that I should bring with me to Lesotho that I probably forgot, write it in the comment section.  I’ve never traveled to Africa before, and as such, I’ve probably packed the completely wrong things.