I know it has been a full week since I last updated, but I have been pretty busy and have not had a lot of time to sit down and write.  (And I only have about 25 minutes right now).  The last week has been pretty awesome.  Grady and I did not realize what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to play basketball with the UB team.  All of a sudden the coach starts showing up and instead of playing basketball we are conditioning with the team - which is great because I did not realize how out of shape I have become since the end of football last year.  We realized that since the inter-varsity games are over semester break and we would really rather travel than be stuck at UB we should tell the coach we cannot make it because we would be travelling and we would just have to find another way to work out.  However, he told us that we were more than welcome to come run and play with them, even if it is just for the workout which works out perfectly for us.  Monday and Tuesday were killers and it hurt me to walk up and down the stairs to my flat.  But last night we decided to go to the courts around 8 and we ended up playing pickup until around 10 so it was another great workout - but more fun since we actually got to play basketball.

Classes are starting to finally flow like a normal semester.  I had my first "test" the other day.  I use quotations because the teacher never told us we were going to have it so everyone was all worried that they were going to fail (which most did).  However, when I received a map of Africa that asked us to label the countries on Africa I felt a HUGE smile come across my face.  I ended up getting the highest grade in the class, although I mixed up Togo and Benin (sorry Mouph) and since Western Sahara is not an officially recognized country I did not put that even though that was the only thing it could have been (damn you Sporcle).  Needless to say the teacher called me out and asked the whole class how a white kid from the USA could do better on a map quiz of Africa than African students.  (Also, while playing basketball last night, one of the kids asked me where I got the black in me from - I found that to be pretty amusing, but also a nice compliment).

Politics of Poverty teacher continues to say that there is no poverty in the United States and that everyone there has money and does well for themselves.  I was so happy when Gerrica called him out and TRIED to explain to him that there are plenty of people who live in chronic poverty.  While he did not quite understand this, I think the other students got the message.

I am starting to enjoy getting called out by my teachers not only because the other students are interested in what an American student has to say about a particular subject, but also because I think it shows that the teacher has the confidence that I will know the answer.  It is nice to have had an awesome teacher like Peter Thompson (although at times we joked about what a joke the class was, he really did teach us well) and now I have a pretty full understanding of International Relations and International Politics to rely on when I am in my Political Science classes here.  So thanks to him.

Anyway, MOST EXCITING, I am leaving for Victoria Falls in about 3 hours.  (Yes, Mom, I know that means I will be skipping my classes on Friday, but hey, I am here and I wanna see Vic Falls).  Anywho, it was my number 1 priority to see Victoria Falls when I signed on to go to Botswana so to have a chance to get there now is awesome and it leaves the rest of the semester to go wherever I get to.  No pressure to see any one place anymore.  It should make for an absolutely awesome experience and I will surely take mucho pictures and post them as soon as I feel like it.

Well I finished this in 15 minutes - yeah I didn't think I could write this much that fast either - so I am going to pack my bag, go to class and head north to Zambia.

PS. Found out today I have a legitimate chance to go to Zimbabwe the end of March...thoughts?  I think I'll go anyway just because it will be sweeeeeet.