Sunsets and Stars

Two things I will never ever get tired of here: the sunsets and the stars. AMAZING. Every time you see them you just have to stop and appreciate the amazing beauty of the Earth (boy, I feel like I’m getting a little too poetic…). ‘Winter’ in Botswana has turned out to be basically perfect weather all the time! And there’s 0% chance of rain so you don’t have to worry about camping trips, fires, or stargazing getting  rained or clouded out. It gets a bit chilly at night, I think the coldest night so far was 4 C, prob 40ish F, so it definitely calls for wool socks or an extra blanket. I am realizing that I definitely did NOT pack correctly for African winters… the general thought process is that Africa is warm everywhere all the time. False. It gets cold! Living off of three sweatshirts, two pairs of jeans, and tennis shoes is definitely doable, but I’m having trouble coming up with church clothes because I only brought skirts and flip flops! Poor planning Ellen…..

    Anyways. Saturday night a group of us went to Lesoma Valley, an area about 30 minutes away with a bit of open space right on the Zimbabwe border where we could play Frisbee, soccer (football), croquet (had to dodge all the elephant poo) and best of all, fly a kite! We had a great time with our games, then as the sun set we built a fire to cook dinner, marshmallows (unfortunately haven’t gotten to do s’mores yet… no graham crackers here, really) and then the best part…. STARS!!! I have never seen this many stars in my life. It was amazing, you could see the milky way and I think just about every single star possible, including all the current southern hemisphere constellations (although they were kind of hard to make out with so many in the background). There’s something about looking up at the sky full of so many stars that just makes you feel so small in the big scheme of things. It is something I would say that everyone has to experience at least once in their life!  No better place than Africa…. Now who’s planning a visit?!