endurance

Endurance: the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way.

Synonyms: tolerance, sufferance, patience...

(I am thoroughly unimpressed with Google's definition of endurance. Seriously though, we learn in what, third grade, that when defining a word you never use said word in the definition.)

I, sadly, only have 20 days left on this continent. 

Boo. Hiss.

In these twenty days I have an incredibly stressful load of work to accomplish.

I have 8 exams.

Like, what?

Endurance.

29 April-- Oral Setswana Exam

29 April-- The African Novel Essay

30 April-- Ecology and Empire, Conservation Politics of East Africa Exam

5 May-- Written Setswana Exam

5 May-- The African Novel Exam

7 May-- The Bible and Gender Exam

8 May-- Traditional Religions of Africa Exam

9 May-- Ecology and Empire, Conservation Politics of East Africa Exam

16 May-- Gospel Narratives Exam

If the stress of preparing to come back to America doesn't kill me, these exams and essays just might!

Endurance.

It's particularly hard to get the motivation to study when my mind is constantly fighting the reality that I have to leave this amazing country in less than three weeks.

My poor little brain is wrestling with the sad truth that I am going to have to leave all o the fantastic people that I have met, most likely to never see them again.

My heart hurts.

All dem feels.

Ugh.

My brain hurts.

Must. Keep. Reading.

Ugh.

Joy.

It's there.

Somewhere.

Though I am oh so sad, I must take solace in the fact that I'm not back state-side yet.

I am still in Botswana

and for that I am extremely thankful.

Until I inevitably get on that tiny Air Botswana plane, to quote Johnathan Harker from Bram Stoker's Dracula...

"I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!"

Endurance.