packing....
you would have thought that i would be amazing at this seeing I had to do it so many times in Africa when we were doing trpis to other parts of the Lesotho, and since being back I have spent days at various other locations - but i always find it such a terrible task. I know that i can live in 4 pairs of trousers for four months, so it is for reasons beyond my knowledge that I feel that three pairs of trousers and two skirts, and my wedding outfit, and various other tops wont get me through my few days in Hull. really zosia its very silly. but i cant do without my hair-straightners and hair-dryer, and then there are also some silly pressies in there for some of you....
but hate packing lots, always feel like i have forgotton something...wedding presents are packed - thats important...and hat, well that just has to be carried, along woth sleeping bag and train food!

oh wordy word

just to say...

..that i am so glad that i got the herbal sleeping tablets because for the first time in an absolute age I managed a decent nights sleep...am still tired as i have loads of lost sleep to catch up on, but i slept last night, and the world is a jolly place again (well the last bit may not be completely true but hey)

I feel like....
....my feet never touch the ground for five minutes at the moment...i am always so busy its untrue, and i am so tired as I cant sleep ever, and oh its just a bit too much of an oh.
so this weekend was the hen weekend...i would recommend paint-balling for anyone who enjoys getting very big bruises and lumps on various parts of their body. It is so painful its untrue, I was lucky as i am a whimp, and when my team talked tactics (too many men full of testosterone - oh yeah both Dav and Peter had members of the opposite sex on their hen/stag dos), my tactic was literally hide behind a tree as going infront of people with these guns was painful - i would be very crap in an army situation for sure.
the assault course was more to my taste - it was very hard but very fun, it was all about working together as a team, and it was really good, although the crawling under tunnels have left me with bruised and battered knees...sob sob, i hope that they go down soon.
then off to a campsite to shower and cahnge, and then into Richmond for a night on the very very very small yorkshire dale town. We went to an Indian restaurant (mrs Hepworth kindly paid for my meal), where i found out that one of Davs work colleagues was an exeter graduate at the same time i was - we get everywhere - i met one in Lesotho too! After this and when all the adults including granny has left we went to a club called the Fleece, and danced the night away. Luckily it was only Dav who we eventuall made do the scavenger hunt, and i didnt really want to tell my brother how well she did! It was a good night, and Harriet was planner extraordinaire, even gave us oarty bags with rather rude things in!
then we taxis it back to the barn where we had more wine and food, and danced on the benches, as Ed would put it "bastrad dancing", and at 3:30 a walk on one of the hills in the dales was suggested and so the ones who had not gone to bed went, and got very stung by stinging nettles on the way. by 5 i was eventually in bed, and at 10:30 i was having a bridesmaid dress ftting, where i was told i looked too brown 9my tan has faded loads too), and Rebecca the dress maker managed to exclaim (even your feet are brown). back to Richmond we went for a greasy lunch, and then everyone went home, aart from me, I went back to the Hepworths I had another dress fitting yesterday and finally arrived home yesterday evening - Peter kindly waited for me after work, and collected me from Kings cross station!
Today I have been shopping for the weddings, for shoes and bags (i have horrid shoes for Peter and Davs wedding, so got very pretty ones for the reception), shoes for James and Ellas wedding, my pashmina/scarf thing, and wrapping paper for the pressies. I also got Peter and Dav their present - i got off the list...
but only one more day here then I am off to Hull...i am so tired. I am not sleeping at all and its getting me really down, and so i have got some sleeping herbal stuff, so that I can at least try and get a good nights sleep. am tryin to find out how we get to the accomodation we at from Hull station - this will be fun, my sense of direction s not to be desired.

i just dont know whether i am coing or going at the moment. I still havnt had a chnace to finish my Lesotho diary, and to think about what has happened to me over the last five months - and a lot has happened, and i really need to think about it all, and see what was nd wasnt my fault, and what i have to do, and how i have to keep some things, and chnage others....and i havnt even strated to think about ym masters degree that i will be starting soon either.

i wish that i could just sleep one night and then maybe things may start to get better for me, and then hopefully, i will be able to put things into perspective

I am quite scared...

...and i think justifiably...on saturday i have a hen night, for Dav (Peter - my brothers fiance), and i knew that we were going to be paint-balling,and doing an army assault course (this is an assault on my bank-balance!), but i didnt know about this until five minutes ago when I innocently checked my email:

SCAVENGER HUNT

Drink a shot with each colour of the rainbow

Blag a free drink from the barman

Kiss a man’s bald spot and leave lipstick marks

Obtain a pair of boxer shorts

Get a photo of you behind the bar

Find the guy with the weirdest thing in his pocket

Get a guy to serenade you

Get five men’s business cards

Get a photo of you with a redheaded guy

Request Agadoo from the DJ

Dance with a married man

Have a guy give you a picture of his girlfriend

Get a guy to give you a piggy back

I did a find the lost sheep on camp in Lesotho, but that was more like finding a fisherman, or a nun, or a baby, or a taxi man....this however is a bit more daunting, and I am quite scared! oh well...am going to buy some hen night stuff tomorrow then, Alex (Dav's sister) has got some stuff, and makes me feel quite bad that I havnt!

hmm....am finding England quite strange...like when i went to the pub the other night (complete light-weight now, one glass of wine and I am gone), i felt guilty about having a drink, and I know thats more me then it is England, but our culture is a lot more lets meet and have a drink, rather then lets just meet which is what it was in Lesotho. and i know that maybe i should not do the endless comparisons, but hey its all I can think about. I miss all the small little things, like just having people call me Ausi Nthabiseng, and giving Rarisen and Khotatso a cuddle, and seeing little baby Josefa, who if i could have taken, would be right here with me now. I just feel guilty about giving myself a pamper, i managed 4 and a bit months wothout it, so why do i change now. Obviously there are things that I do enjoy again, like having instant contact with people (have had some very good chats with people), and seeing my nan, and having the freedom to drive, but then I miss the tranquility I did have in the evenings (when i wasnt worrying myself stupidly about whether people will still like me at home, and whether people will accept me back), and just the huge amount of time that I spent with God out there, and having 4 other girls in the room to pray with when i needed it. That is a huge change, and I really miss that fellowship that we built with each other, that was amazing.

oh well...
what started off as an Im scared about the hen-night post, as I am cos I am nto used to doing things like this anymore, and I just cant take drink, has turned into something very deep - obviuosly, a lot needed to come out, and there is still a lot more in there.

finding a wedding outfit...

...is not as simple as you would think. There are lots of nice clothes on the market at the moment, dont get me wrong, but they are all very casual - tops you would wear with jeans to a pub kindof outfit, not going to a wedding kindof outfit, and when you want to look nice but smartish also, its very hard to find something suitable. Well I have fiunally gotton myself a dress from Monsoon - iys not a ball dress dont worry, its kindof a nice summer dress, with 60's stylee purple flowers on it - it looks much nicer then i have just described it...and i also got a hat to go with it - that was my mums doing - try it on she kept on saying, and i kept on resisiteing saying that I look awful in hats, but then i put it on, and it looked ok, and so she basically forced me into buying a hat! just have to get a shawl/pashmina type thing to match it now, for when it gets cool in the evening/or if its a cooler day, and to cover up my shoulders in the church (dress is a halter neck)...oh yeah and bags and shoes...

was also warned by my brothers fiance that when I have my dress fitted for their wedding, i MUST wear the underwear that I will be wearing on the day, so teh dress can be fitted around it...which meant more shopping!

but my outfit for James and Ella's wedding has my nans approval (she has good taste has my nan), and so I am happy!

hello blog!

I am back! yep over four months have passed, and i am back....

i should however start my post like this - Lumellah Ntate - o pela jhuane? Ke pela hankley, kealeboha, buena o pela juan? oh sharp!

you see, learnt a bit of sesotho whilst in the old Africa - well you would have hoped so after living there for four months

well most of the people who read this are on my email list and so you kind0f know a lot of what i have been up to in the last few months...its gone so quickly and i have been able to experience so much its stupid...it had its ups and downs, and unfortunately my depression came back with a big fat fist in the face. i was so low at one point, i really did just feel like giving up and coming back home...i was just being undermined and it attacked my confidence...i felt so useless, i felt worthless and just felt like everything was going wrong...i felt like that no matter how hard i tried nothing seemed to be going right, and i felt that i had let everyone down...it was horrid. but then as someone told me, God knows our limits, and he manged to change the situation for me, and the person that made me feel like this was sent home from the mission, and the whole team turned around completely...we fully relied on God and put our trust in Him, and the work that we achieved was just amazing, and the team just got on amazingly well, and when it came to leaving, we just didnt want to. an we all cried a ridiculous amount!

I will talk about some of the things that we did on various other blogs i just wanted to get my initial impressions of things since getting back down. Well, I am very worried that i wont fit into friendship groups that I left behind again...a lot can and probably has happened in four months of which I have not been a part, and I feel that people have grown closer together, and i am very out of this. I also hope that people will accept the changes that have happened in me...i have changed, i have had to, adapting is so important, and i think that I have changed in a good way, and i just hope that people accept that. I hope that people are not disappointed with the fact that my depression has come back...i really didnt want it to happen - its not as bad as it was before i went to Africa, or how it was when i was in Africa, but its still here, there is still so much i dislike about myself, and i find it so hard to find anything positive about myself its untrue, and i really do feel like a failure.... Africa is just an amazing country...it may not be econmically rich, but it is so rich in culture, and love that its just amzing - we westerners have so much to learn from these people. they give everything that they have to give, unlike us take take people, they are so welcoming, so loving and so friendly. they make time for people and things, its not all here and now. and these are things that are so important. I have seen some really horrible sights, and its really upset me on a few occassions, sometimes I really dont understand why these things can happen, i have heard some horrid stories about how some children have been treated, and i have smelt some revolting conditions which people have to live, but thats the thing, these people do live, and they make the best out of it. But what was really amzing is the richness in their faith...they have so much trust and faith in God over everything..some of it is very charismatic which scared me a bit as I have never reallyu experieneced things like that, but the faith that people had was truly inspiring.

as i have said, i have so much stuff buzzing about in my head, its very hard to work out what is important and what isnt...

i just want to thank God for an amzing four months that I am always going to have in my memories...i learnt so much, and i have so much to be thankful for, and i hope that i dont bore people with my endless stories and tales that i have. i really hope that people accept me back, and trust in me still...i really hope that people i thought of as my friends are still there for me, and will get me through the highs and lows i am already experiencing on my return. I also thank my 7 other team mates for making the mission the amazing time it was. really without the lows that we had, we woud not have expeienced the most amzing high that we did as a team, to show the true potential and love that we have for each other....i love you all!

oh oh oh de Lesotho....

rapella hankle

Nthabiseng (will make you happy...my Sesotho name)