Just had a wonderful dinner with our wonderful hosts. Tasted bultong, dried boerewors, milk tart, and South African wines.

We arrived!!

bit of rain. After a small mishap on the escolator at the airport, we were off to Middleburg. We have all had a relaxing afternoon and are meeting for a BBQ tonight.

Here is the Rotary Vocational Travel Team with Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch. Left to right: Lindsay Davis (Bridgeport Public Schools), Heather Ferguson (Bridgeport Public Schools), Laurie Noe (Housatonic Community College), Tim Bartlett (YMCA), Donna Thompson-Bennett (Parent Leadership Training Institute), Barbara Welles-Nystrom (Fairfield University). We are scheduled to leave Saturday morning. Weather forecast: snow.

Happy New Year, Everyone

It is less than a week until the Rotary Vocational Travel Team from Bridgeport, CT leaves on a 15 hour direct plane flight from New York to Johannesburg, South Africa (where we will meet up with our team leader from Stockholm, Sweden. We will be heading to Rustenburg which is about 1.5 hours west of there. That puts us not too far from the border with Botswana. Rustenburg is home to the two largest platinum mines in the world and game reserves in the area are home to "the big five;" elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, and water buffalo. It is summer there and the temperatures have been in the upper 80s and low 90s.

Check out the article about the South Africa trip.

http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/thebridgeportnews/news/localnews/79556-bridgeport-south-africa-forming-educational-partnership-.html

South Africa, here I come

It's Official! I will be traveling to South Africa for 3 weeks in January with a team of early childhood folks from Bridgeport to visit a rural community in the Royal Bafokeng Nation, west of Johannesburg. The Rotary Club is sponsoring our Vocational Travel Team and the team of South Africans who will be visiting Bridgeport in March. I will post images as I am able to.

Come watch and discuss the Babies movie at Housatonic Community College on Nov 29 or at Norwalk Community College on Dec 6 sponsored by the Fairfield County Association for the Education of Young Children. Write me for more details at Laurie@LaurieNoe.com