REI: Where you go when you intern in a developing country.

I take forever to buy things. When I was in middle school I ended up accruing somewhere around $500 in a shoe box under my bed from babysitting and birthday money because I simply didn't buy things when I went shopping with my friends. As I've gotten older, I started to realize that sometimes you need to make big purchases, and between moving into a bigger apartment and preparing for my internship I have learned to bite the bullet a few times and buy things that are really necessary. In the past two weeks I have made three trips to REI, and I'm likely to make at least one more trip before I head out. It took two trips for me to buy the right water purifier (and mull it over...and over...and over...) and today I bought my first travel pack! I'm really excited about this. I took a big wheeled suitcase to Senegal and I've vowed "never again" shall I make that same mistake. I still remember the look of horror on the hotel owner's face when we first arrived and he was told he would have to help us lug our big, American suitcases up three flights of stairs. So with the help of a nice salesman I purchased the Deuter Act Lite 60+10! I also became an REI member because I realized that the benefits are actually worth it in this case...



That's it, really. I've bought a few things off of Amazon that I think would just be more expensive than necessary at REI like my travel blanket and quick-dry towel and laundry kit. It's weird not knowing what to expect from my apartment. It's in a really nice neighborhood, described as the "nouveau-riche" area, but really it could be super nice and equipped with wifi or I could be taking bucket showers. Needless to say, it makes packing kind of difficult. I'm trying to be sort of "middle of the road" with my packing list and taking things that will be useful in both situations and necessary in the latter.

Two more weeks!

You can tell it's for women because it came with a fake flower....

Counting down!

Last Wednesday I turned 23 and this past week has been filled with celebrations! One of the many events was that my mom came up to visit me and see the new apartment now that Sean and I have started to settle in. As a birthday present, we went shopping yesterday for some clothes and other things that I'm going to need for my internship. It's crazy, but I have been so distracted with moving into our new apartment in Madison that I didn't even realize HOW SOON I'm going to be leaving! Several of my classmates are already at their internship sites, two of them have finished their stage already, but for me the adventure is just starting to get rolling. I'm getting nervous, but excited, mostly just realizing how busy I'm going to be in these next few weeks.

We have to get everything out of our old place by Tuesday. This means that Saturday will be dedicating to schlepping things across town and unpacking even more. I'm a little concerned that our apartment won't even be ready by the time I head to Yaounde.

One of the things my mom and I did was search for a water purification device at REI. It's confusing because there are all sorts of little differences between all of the systems and I'm not sure which one is right for my circumstances. I'm doing a little more research today and I'll head over in the next few days to pick out the right one.

It's been surprisingly difficult to find a good packing list for Cameroon. Most of the ones I've found online are Peace Corps packing lists. This is great except that the Peace Corps provides some essentials like hygiene products that I'm going to need to bring myself. I'm also going to be working in an office for the most part, so that's a little different than what a lot of PC people are doing in Cameroon. Thus, those packing lists are useful, but not exactly what I need. Maybe I'll post what I've packed before I leave and report back at the end of my stage on what really was necessary, what I needed, and what I wish I hadn't packed at all.

Well I expect I'll blog a few more times before I leave. For now I'm just enjoying Madison and our new apartment and trying to squeeze in as many "American" things as I can before I'm abroad!

Getting excited..

I've been researching more about my organization and some of the research they've done that has garnered international attention. Here's a Washington Post article explaining some of their biggest research!:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030404489.html

Back to blogging!

It has been quite a long time since I last blogged, the truth being that my summer, while it has been very fun, hasn't been very blog-worthy. Sean and I have spent a lot of time packing up boxes, shopping for furniture, and piling up frozen vegetable bags on our bodies....ok so it's been super hot here. Last week the apartment finally topped 97 degrees and so our minds have been focused on our big move to our new apartment!

Some of you might be confused. "I thought she was moving to Africa?" Well, I am. At the end of next month. But first I get to move across town into a wonderful apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer and central air and a beautiful kitchen counter that is more than just a square and a couch that isn't made out of wicker. So yep, still going to Cameroon, but first I need to tie things up here! (Of course, it wouldn't be me unless I moved into an apartment and could stay in it for longer than a year, but this time I'm staying for a grand total of 4 weeks.)

While I've been on summer break I've:
Gone camping
Gone to a White Sox game
Hung out with lots of old friends in Chicago
Learned to knit
Played with my adorable sort-of nephew (all the while thinking of and missing my adorable actual nephew!)
Cooked and baked a lot
Had a visit from a friend from camp
Attended the Milwaukee Summerfest music festival where we saw a Ben Folds Five reunion concert
Helped a friend move
Bought a new phone
Aided in the trapping/rescuing of a raccoon on my parents' roof/in their attic
Experienced my first "coupure" (power outage) since living in Senegal
Fixed a complete toilet disaster (we're talking a completely shattered tank, and me saving thousands of dollars for everyone involved by stopping the water flow with my handy toilet skills I learned from living with a plumber's daughter for 2 years!)
....among other things I'm sure. So, like I said before, I haven't been super bored, but I also haven't done anything incredibly blog-worthy. I'm getting really excited for my internship, although fairly nervous. I wanted to start blogging again so that I can get in the habit of blogging while abroad. Even though it seems like total common sense to spend a few minutes every night writing about your day, I find that when I move to a new place I am often so wrapped up in everything that is going on that I completely forget about blogging unless I'm homesick, and that's no fun to read or look back on later! I also plan on keeping a private hand-written journal mostly entailing my research for my grad program and how I'm personally adapting to the situation. My friend did that when she was in Senegal and we were looking over it together a few months ago and I really wished I had done something similar.

That's all for now. I'm going to try and blog fairly frequently up until my departure, but we'll see if that actually works out. I'm trying to learn a little Pulaar (aka Fulfulde) before I head off to Yaounde..where's the Rosetta Stone for African languages?!? (Ok, so they have Swahili but come on. They have sooo many Asian and European languages) Anyway, that's a rant for a different day.

Until then...
Ngonen e jam!

Just a quick update

This is just a quick update to let you know I fixed the problem with the pictures on the last entry, and also to say that things are moving along nicely with the internship in Cameroon! I've been in contact with both the executive secretary and the technical director of RENATA (www.tantines.org if you want to check it out) and while they're both out of the office until Monday, I'm going to have a phone call with them to iron out all of the official details so that they can draft up a contract/lettre d'invitation for my visa!

This is all very exciting, although I did also just look up airline tickets to Cameroon for round trip September-December and we're looking at about $1600 including the discount of the travel stipend which I was awarded. Here's hoping somebody hires me this summer! Otherwise I might end up looking like this:

And the wandering continues!

Spring break has unfortunately ended. It was a great week spent with my family in Chicago and Boston, but now I'm back in Madison for the home stretch of school! It's been about a year since I started this blog just as I was contemplating my move to Madison and it's interesting to see how right now I'm contemplating moving again! So..."where to?", you may ask. Well..that's a great question!

Although I had originally planned to be gone from about May-September on my internship, I'm currently slated to leave sometime in September and get back at the end of December. The good news is, after months of complaining that I would never find an internship and that nobody wanted me, that has certainly changed! The bad news is...now too many people want me. Currently I am in negotiations with two different non-profit organizations, one in the south of France and one in Cameroon. The organization in France works with children with Autism (how perfect is that?), but they aren't sure they have the funds to pay me, and under French law interns staying for 3 months (the minimum requirement for our program) have to be paid. Obviously I wouldn't be opposed to working unpaid, since that's kind of what I assumed before I knew about this law, but in terms of getting my visa and everything I need to be an "intern" with a contract, so they need to pay me. It's a great law to prevent the abuse of interns that is so prevalent in France (and in the US), but it definitely hurts non-profits which are generally volunteer-based. At the same time, this organization is still being viewed as a "plan B" for me, because I would prefer to work with an organization connected to a developing country.

The second option I "potentially" have is a non-profit in Cameroon which works with women and young girls who experience unplanned pregnancy, abuse, and health concerns. I would be very interested in working for such an organization. It's a topic I think is important to address worldwide, and it also means working pretty closely with adorable children and their moms! So far my contact, and that of my director, with the organization has been to the effect of "Great! We would love to have you! When will you get here?", so we need to make the details of this a lot more concrete before I accept that offer. I would really love to work for this organization and it sounds like exactly what I want in this internship experience, but it is a little frustrating that I need to negotiate contract details and logistics in a country where that kind of stuff isn't super important. I'm definitely leaning toward this option, but time is of the essence since I need to buy a plane ticket, get my visa, and figure out where I'm going to live in either city.

So..what this boils down to is still a whole lot of "wait and see". I'm trying to arrange a phone conversation with the Cameroonian organization, because I feel like as soon as I get on the phone with them I'll be able to deal with things a lot easier. I've actually had a fair amount of experience with "la culture ouest-africaine" in terms of time management, but it's a little different when I'm also working with an American school system who needs everything to be figured out on paper.

In the meantime, I'm excited to finish up my last semester of actual classes and to actually enjoy my summer break now that I know I'll be here instead of abroad. Sean and I have a small camping trip planned for his first weekend home after he graduates and I'm planning a weekend/day trip to Chicago at some point with some friends here to try out a Senegalese restaurant I never knew about while I lived there! I'm definitely ready to be "done" with the whole school thing, which I guess is a pretty common consequence of a week of spring break. Only about a month left though! We just started "Module Maghreb", which is a unit in one of my classes where we discuss politics of French-speaking North Africa. It's a really short unit (boo...we spent forever on France and Quebec), three weeks of Maghreb and then two weeks of Sub-Saharan Africa so I'm really excited for that. Yesterday we met our professor, who is from Egypt, and I spoke a little bit of Arabic with her! It was my first experience using Arabic with somebody I don't really know and she was excited about it.

Well that's it for now, I guess I'll leave you with a few pictures from my trip to Boston with my brother to visit my sister, her husband, and my adorable new nephew!

Me and the nephew!

My brother is not too sure about holding a baby...

My sister, happy to finally have her little one home!

My brother shaming history after a beer at the "oldest restaurant in America"


I have some more pictures that I took with my actual camera (not my phone). I'll get around to putting those on facebook eventually...

Spring..has...uhh..something'd!

Remember all of those posts where I complained about my apartment being 65 degrees with the heat on? Remember the flannel sheets and down blanket Sean's family gave me for Chanukah? Remember the big pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove for most of the day? Well...I think I may have been a bit too much of a complainer. It is HOT outside! I stubbornly refuse to state that spring is officially here, because I did not move from Chicago to Madison in order to be sweating under my ceiling fan in March! Although it does make me feel a bit better when I remember that I'll hopefully be out of this apartment before the summer really gets into swing. (Of course, any country that I move to probably will not have quite the same affinity for air conditioning as America...)

Now, I bet you're all (and by "all", I mean "Mom") asking yourselves why I'm suddenly updating my blog. No, I do not have any other internship news. Well...sort of. I still don't know where I'm going to end up. It's beginning to look like it might be more of a warmer climate than originally expected. My parents aren't so keen on the idea, but I have to admit...I've caught the Senegal bug again. (Er...metaphorically.) Perhaps it's the fact that the weather is getting warmer out again, perhaps it's a result of meeting a couple of new friends who also studied in Dakar, perhaps it's the Yassa simmering in my crockpot, or maybe I've just actually started thinking hard about where I want to spend three months working for relatively no money and how my experience will relate to my studies.

The truth is, I'm still looking at France, but I only really want to go there if I work for an organization like Handicap International. I'm frustrated with the way things are going getting an internship there, but going to Senegal isn't a way to avoid this frustration "because it's there". What originally spoke to me about an internship with Handicap International was that I could learn the bureaucratic side of a non-profit organization which implements programs for people with special needs in developing countries. What this search has turned into is "any organization which helps people with special needs in France". Don't get me wrong, I've volunteered for local disability non-profits all my life, it's something I like to do and I think it's important; but what I'm looking for with this internship, especially as a student of international development, is how to resolve problems that arise through implementing a program in a developing country. The key word here is development. Something different from the experiences I've had previously that I can point to on my resume showing what I can do. All I can say, for people who equate me+Senegal with bad news, is that it feels right.

Yes, my experience in the past wasn't as great as it could have been. Yes, they are going through elections right now which may cause some tensions, but just this morning in France 4 people were killed when a rogue shooter drove by a Jewish school, and he's being linked with a string of other attacks targeting ethnic minorities. France is becoming increasingly xenophobic in some ways (just check out a strong candidate for their presidential elections, Marine LePen if you don't believe me). While the dangers aren't similar in nature, they're both threats that I would have as somebody studying in a foreign country.

So...this is where I'm at right now. I'm still keeping France in my back pocket as a "plan B" (no organizations suggested as of yet by the coordinator), but I have contacted a school in Yoff (a neighborhood of the Dakar region right near the airport), which was created by parents of children with special needs so that they could get the education that were unable to receive in mainstream schools. The school also does a lot of community outreach, and they've taken on foreign interns before to help lead programs in the community as well as teach the kids and help with administrative duties. I really think this would be perfect for me, but as you may or may not know...if the French are slow at getting back to you...well...let's just say I once had a professor who was 2.5 hours late for class in Dakar. So we'll see where this all takes me! (I know, you're getting tired of responses that don't actually mean anything...trust me, you aren't the only one...)

In the meantime, classes are going well. I'm enjoying them for the most part, some definitely more than others. I really enjoyed a presentation I had to give recently where we posed as stockholders in Rio Tinto Alcan (a mining company in Canada) and essentially gave them an ultimatum regarding their employee lockouts. In my business class we had guest speakers from the Food Network and American Girl come in, and in my oral communications class we have a guest lecturer for 4 classes who founded S.O.S. Racisme in France and now works for an organization called Nouvelle Cour. So things have been pretty interesting around here. I also took on my first freelance translation job last week for a dairy commodities company, which I think went well. I guess I'll know if they contact me for more work later on and I should be receiving  my check in the mail any day now!

I think that's it...it's going to be a busy couple of weeks before spring break when I take a trip down to Chicago for a few days, then I'll be off to Boston with my brother to visit my sister and brother-in-law and meet my new nephew!