Like this:

i haven’t written much about the internship itself yet.  it’s only, y’know, the reason why i’m here.

if you followed me the last time i was abroad, you know i tend to get pretty homesick.  it’s not something on the surface (at least it doesn’t feel that way) but you can definitely read it between the lines pretty clearly and it colors a lot for the first few weeks i’m anywhere new.  but i’m an internal processor, too.  it’s probably why i’m having trouble writing this post (i’ve probably started it three times at least)–i need to be able to explain it to myself in reasonable, relatively unemotional terms before i make a statement about it.  needless to say, i’ve never been good on my feet.

that being said, i would say that this internship is… going.  i was telling constance (another volunteer, who’s around my mom’s age, attorney-type, lovely) that of the few internships i’ve had, i’ve never really done any that were established programs.  like i was their first intern or like in the case of here, the group is new and the job complicated and the group dynamic pretty atypical.  so, to break it down, i’m a volunteer with project HOPE and through them an intern for the aedifos group, a “for profit social enterprise,” which basically means they get hired/contracted to do socially progressive things, in this case project management and controls (aka crazy precise scheduling and people organizing).

you might be thinking the same thing i was when i left dulles: “where do i fit in here?”  i mean, every job has its own jargon and processes, right?  by a week into this, i was telling my mom it feels like speaking french–i can understand it, i just don’t have the vocabulary or grammar (or experience) to contribute.  i am a sponge.

which is all well and good.  i am getting the feeling that project HOPE kind of just dropped me in and bossman has to deal with me.  and i have trouble talking to bossman.  i think we’re opposites on a lot of important levels and he’s concerned with a lot more than babying an intern.  but i knew i had to talk to him–everyone else knows his or her role here and i was/am still really unclear.  a lot had been kind of taken for granted in what i knew, which is partially my fault as well (neither party are mindreaders, or so i’ve assumed, or so i hope).  so we sat down for a brief chat one afternoon and he kind of laid it out: he wasn’t exactly thrilled (as i’d kind of been vibing from him): based on my resume, he probably wouldn’t have brought me on, the notes i’d taken in dulles were incomplete/disappointing.  he said that as an internship, this is supposed to be an apprenticeship and if i wasn’t interested, maybe i should cut my losses.

yea, not awesome.  but i’m pretty good at keeping it together (i’m not incredibly reactive, i guess) and past that he told me he expected me to keep our common areas clean, run errands, and fulfill requests that anyone asked of me.  he expects that he and the others should be able to know me and my aims before i leave the internship so if anything i can have connections.

since then, i think things have been a little less tense, a little less uncertain.  i think what he said was rough, but honest.  he didn’t say it meanly, just the facts.  i don’t think all of those coals should be on my head but i can only control what i do, right?  i can only ask questions and do what’s asked of me to the best of my abilities.

i’ve been getting more comfortable, less hesitant with my answers, loosening up a bit.  so what if bossman hasn’t been here for the past 3 days?  so what if i’m relieved when i’m not around him?

we’ll be heading home tomorrow (a week early!) to talk with the project HOPE contact (his wife just had a baby a couple weeks ago–you know he’s not going anywhere any time soon) in d.c.  whether or not i’ll be going hasn’t really been explicit.  neither has if i’ll be coming back to south africa in january with the rest of the team.  and i don’t think it should be my decision necessarily.  given the option, i’d like to come back.  the best advice i got before i left was from beth’s mom: give it six weeks, you can’t know how you feel about it before then.  i’m just getting into the swing of things and would like to see if this can pan out–i don’t like letting things go because i’m afraid or uncomfortable.

but i’m expensive.  i’m useful, but maybe not useful enough to pay for me here.  if this were in the states, it wouldn’t be an issue.  but here…

sigh.

it’s not the end of the world.  the worst i’ll be able to say is that the journey to south africa is really quite unfortunate.  if this ends up being only three weeks or three months, at least i got a free trip to south africa and learned some things about the human aid industry that i didn’t before, met some new people, and had to confront new problems i’ve yet to face.  like mom always says, no job is useless.

 

 

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