Taylor L is excited to see what lies ahead

Last week we started our internships. After visiting my internship and everyone else’s internship, I was so excited to start. Although the speech department did not start therapy last week, I was busy meeting many of the students at the Eros School. I spent most of my time in the pre-grade R classroom and the grade R class. The children in these classes are absolutely precious and are probably the happiest kids I have ever met. There is a new student in the pre-grade R class and one day he was getting fitted for a wheelchair. He was so excited and he began familiarizing himself with this aid. At one point he asked the teacher “will this help me walk?” It was heartbreaking to hear, but it left me hopeful that with all the love and support around him, he will one day be able to walk.

           

In these classes I was introduced to the four children I will be working with over the course of the semester. I am very excited to work with them to improve speech intelligibility and feeding/swallowing ease. Although I was nervous to participate in the feeding/swallowing aspect of Speech Therapy, after watching numerous demonstrations and assessments, it isn’t as difficult or disgusting as I imagined.

           

What surprised me the most in the school is that the children are taught to help one another out. When we went outside to play, two girls helped their friend walk to the sandbox. It was the sweetest thing I have ever seen and I’m sure it meant a lot to the friend to be included in the activities. I have worked with a lot of kids around this age, and I have never seen a child help out another child like these learners did!

           

After our first week, we were all exhausted. However on Friday, some of us made it our mission to make it to the top of Lions Head. Despite the heat, we made it! I always thought I was scared of heights but I was able to sit on the rock ledges with ease. It was so peaceful and beautiful to look at the different views of Cape Town. We were lucky enough to get an incredible picture of the “tablecloth” on TableMountain!

           

We closed our week with a concert at Kirstenbosch. I loved Jimmy Nevis at Kirstenbosch, so I was very excited to go back and see FreshlyGround. I also liked that we got to the gardens early, which allowed us to explore for a bit and grab lunch at Moyo.  We also couldn’t pass up the complimentary face painting! It was a great end to the week, and I’m very excited to see what this week brings!

Taylor no longer seems to be afraid of heights