It is unbelievable to think that we arrived back from Namibia just over a month ago! Since “relaxation” doesn’t exist in my vocabulary, I have seen just shy of four days at home since arriving stateside. Work has me doing what I love and traveling all over to dance, giving me little to no time […]
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Today we said goodbye to the learners at The School for the Visually Impaired in Namibia. Our hearts broke, to say the least. I can’t believe the month is already up and that we are headed back to the United States tomorrow. The students have learned so much from us, but we have learned even […]
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For the past 20 days we have been working within the School for the Visually Impaired. Over the duration of this week we were able to tour Moreson, the School for the Mentally Impaired, and the School for the Hearing Impaired, all incorporated under National Institute for Special Education (NISE). These three special schools are […]
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To be honest, it has been an emotional few days at National Institute for Special Education (NISE). The learners are still a little riled up from their long weekend (“out weekend”) and the teachers are becoming accustomed to having us around, but today we got to see, for the first time, the depths of some […]
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When the 5 a.m. alarm rang on Saturday morning I don’t think any of us realized how indescribable the next 12 hours would be. It was the ever anticipated safari day and lucky was an understatement. We entered Etosha National Park, over 100 square miles of free range parkland, around 6:30 a.m. with all our […]
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We began our trip to Swakopmund at 9 a.m. on Friday. We all packed into a more compact van and took off for the coast! The drive was scenic as we watched the landscape change from a grassland savanna to desert to, eventually, ocean. We made a few pit stops before finally arriving at our […]
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Hello all, The Internet has been spotty for the past few days, but we have just completed our first week of school at NISE! We were swarmed on Wednesday with dozens of learners’ hugs and smiles getting off the bus, but we were lead quickly towards the school’s presentation center for an official welcome. We […]
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Today, our first day of school, is hard to put into words. We arrived at the National Institute for Special Education (NISE) around 7:30 a.m. and were greeted by squeals and smiles and waves from the bus. It took all of 10 seconds to receive dozens of hugs. It is winter here in Namibia so […]
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We arrived in Heathrow, London around 10 a.m. London time (4 a.m. Chicago time). Our British Airlines flight 296 was equipped with personal screens to play recent movies, music and games, so the seven hours seemed to fly between naps. Upon our arrival over the pond we found our coach bus that would take us […]
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For those of you who don’t know, my name is Taylor Buresch, a senior special education major with minors in cognitive disabilities and Spanish. I am more than excited to not only embark on the trip of a lifetime to Namibia, Africa, with 14 fellow students and Professor Patty Caro, but also to share my […]
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