By Katie Wilson and Haley Henneberry
Wrap-up
week was a week filled with many emotions. Students around the CGEE house
scrambled to finish last minute projects and put the finishing touches on final
papers, while instructors prepared lessons that culminated an entire semester
of learning. Every spare second of free time was
spent out on the town doing last minute shopping and ticking things of bucket
lists. The
house filled with excitement and nervousness as the semester came to an end. During
the week, each class wrapped up the different themes and lessons we learned
throughout our four months in Namibia, making us all realize how much we
learned both inside and outside of the classroom over the course of the semester.
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| A beautiful Windhoek sunset. |
Katie’s Experience with Wrap-Up Week
Throughout my entire time in Southern
Africa I have been able to learn things I never even thought I would learn
about myself and the world around me. Wrap Up week could be best
described as that in the time span of a week. Each of my final class
sessions was a great opportunity to reflect on what I had learned this
semester, what that meant for me personally, and how many of the themes were
inner related across our classes. It was during the reflection sessions
that I also realized how much I learned over eight classes and while we had a
month gap between our classes at one point (While we went to the North) I
really retained that information. I also realized how much of what I
learned was applicable to my life and going forward and I’m really happy with
how much of a critical thinker my classes have helped me become. For
instance, my development class has really made me aware that there is a whole
lot of grey area in everything and to not only consider the various sides and
aspects of things, but also when being critical of situations to remember to
look at the issue from a humanistic approach. My religion class also
encompassed these themes but also examined the role of foreigners imposing
religion on local groups and the various roles that the Church played in
different social issues which in a country like Namibia is so very
important. I also took time to visit my Urban Host family one last time
and had all my feelings of gratitude for my studies, my friendships, and my
time here reinforced. My Homestay experiences were not only the
highlights of my trip but the times that what I was learning in class came to
life. All these lessons and more, are things I will take away from my
time in Namibia and while I’m not completely sure how that is going to shape me
as an individual in the long run; I am so grateful for how much I have grown
and experienced in the last four months.
Haley’s
Experience with Wrap-Up Week
Wrap-up
week gave me much needed time to reflect on the concepts and ideas I learned
over the semester. During my personal reflection, one theme in particular stood
out to me. One of the most prominent and, to me, interesting topics covered in
each of my courses was race. Before coming to Namibia, I was up-to-date with
many race issues in the United States and participated in various discussions
centered on the topic, but I never analyzed my beliefs and where those beliefs
came from. That quickly changed when classes at the CGEE house began. My
classes pushed me to question my own role as a white, female student from the
United States studying in Namibia and how my racial identity plays a role in my
life back home. Before Namibia, I never thought of the ways race and the environment
interact with one another or how the many history books I learned from in
secondary school only illustrated one side of a larger race dialog. The most
important conversation based on race that I took away from this semester
happened during the final wee of classes. A few of my instructors asked the
class how we were planning on continuing a race conversation when the semester
ends, something I never considered. Over the course of four months, I became
used to engaging in debates and conversations about race, racism, and racial
identity, not once thinking when I go back to the United States these
conversations won’t be an assumed part of my day. I will have to make an effort
to get people engaged and be the pusher not the pushed when it comes to race
dialogs. After being in classes that effortlessly wove race discussions into
lessons, I now know that when I am a teacher I want to do the same. I hope that
I can start a conversation about race at an early age, getting my students
interested in the topic and encouraging them to take a look at their own
identity and begin to formulate opinions on the topic of race. I am so thankful
for the classes I’ve taken this semester in Namibia and even more thankful for
the enlightening conversations and passion they evoked.
Our time in Namibia has been a wonderful,
life-changing adventure. From classes to host families to running around
Windhoek and making the city our own we have grown and changed.
Everything has become interwoven with our newfound sense of awareness and
appreciation for the world around us, allowing us to take what we learned in the
classroom into the beautiful city around us. This semester has been filled with
difficult classes and thoughtful discussions and we could not be more thankful
for our time spent learning in Windhoek, Namibia.
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| The beautiful city we've called home! |
This blog is the work of our students. To learn more about Center for Global Education programming, visit us at www.augsburg.edu/global
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