This morning Mike, Pamela, and I began our quest for internships for Mike and I, or rather restarted, this is a process that has been going on since April-ish, when we, Mike and I, told Fred Koch, the director of the Social Work Program, about what we were interested in doing abroad. Mike and I both really wanted the international experience (obviously) so today was a bit frustrating for us.
The first site we went to, Holy Family Hospital, had several options for both of us. I am interested in working with people affected by domestic and sexual violence, and Mike is interested in working in the substance abuse field. There were a lot of options there for both of those issues, as well as an opportunity to work with kids, which we both want to do. Since neither one of us speak much Hindi, (a few phrases here and there, but nothing where we could interact on a regular basis with anyone, especially in a professional helping relationship) the lady at the site seemed less than eager to "take us on."
Next, we went to the largest slum in Asia, and the second largest in the world, the name of which I'm forgetting right now, but it takes up 580 acres, to go to another social service agency. Here we waited for about forty-five minutes until we talked to someone where we pretty much got the same response, they are unwilling to take us on because we don't speak Hindi.
Right now I'm just incredibly frustrated. It seems like a lot of the legwork should have happened before Mike and I got here, but instead its been happening this week. I get that every detail might not have been settled, but what if we had been able to do site visits this week, instead of waiting until the weekend. We both have made our interests known to several people before we even got here, so it would have been nice to have some agencies already thought of instead of going through a list on Monday. Also, there is the issue of time. We are supposed to be working about sixteen hours a week at our sites, right now it looks like we'll miss out on at least two weeks, or thirty-two hours, of work. I know I can make it up, but still I want to make sure I'm given plenty of time to see and explore India and Mumbai.
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Emmy, your blog is amazing - feel like I am experiencing some of the same things you are!
ReplyDeleteEveryone is thinking about you and wishing you all the best. Hope you have some good luck finding your "site" since it seems to play a big part of the requirements.
Love, Jean Covington
Oof! That sucks that things aren't falling into place right away. I hope people stop being lame sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteTell Mike I wish him good luck as well.
Loving these post's by the way. Once you're all done, you should print them out and make them into a scrapbook with all your pics.
Ciao love you. (how do you say bye in hindi, btw?)
BZam
Hey lovely lady!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear things are going so well with the internship search so far. It's so hard because at one point you know you need to settle down and pick an internship site but in the same regards, you didn't travel all the way to India to have a crappy internship. I know the feeling. I went through the same thing when I was there...not quite as bad as you, but still really frustrating.
I don't know if you have my website where I blogged when I was in Mumbai, that might help with understanding the culture and the craziness that is Mumbai. It's allieproctor.blogspot.com
Keep your head high and your camera always in your bag.....just in case you see any more Bollywood stars :)
Miss you & love you!