It’s back to work after a splendid four day weekend with my lovely group. I’ve been working on a report for the TAC employee I’m working under, Phillip. It basically involves me summarizing all the TAC stories and campaigns for 2008 regarding women’s rights and gender issues. I definitely have been learning a lot. Between condom shortages, over-priced HPV vaccines, and male circumcision, it feels like I could spend years only begin to learn all the layers of the complex HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The report is loooooong. It’s taken me all day to get through the stories on the TAC website, and I still have three documents to get through for tomorrow afternoon. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, but I haven’t been done I’m doing a really crappy job yet so I guess that’s a good sign…
One of my daily routines at work is going through my emails every morning. It’s been so great to hear from some of you that you’re actually reading this, so I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you. A second of my routines is to g-chat with Anthony throughout the day. Everyone except him and me have another intern working with them at their site, so we keep each other as much company as possible throughout the day. Third routine- muffins. Random I know. But I some reason find a way to eat a muffin every day, and by muffin I actually just mean muffin top because I don’t care much for the bottom half. So my work days usually progress as follows: emails to g-chatting to working/blogging to muffins to working/blogging to getting bored to leaving to gym to dinner to whatever we do in the evening. It’s so odd to be in a work routine. I’m not going to lie though, I LOVE not having work in the evenings when I get home from the office.
Oh, for those of you who know even a little about my wardrobe capacity, you will find the following incredibly comical. I currently have no pants to wear. Literally. I gave EVERY pair of my pants to the laundry Monday morning, forgetting the Tuesday was a holiday which would probably mean no laundry again until Wednesday. I have been wearing Naomi’s leggings for the past three days. I think it is the first (and hopefully last) time in my life I have ever run out of clothing. Hopefully I’ll get them back by tomorrow, otherwise I might have to wear a sheet around my waist. Kidding, Anthony offered to give me his pants already, but I do look like a straight fool wearing them.
We also had a group reflection session this evening which always keeps me thinking for the rest of the day. I usually go into them not thinking I have something to say, but somehow always end up wanting to talk through things with the others. Very deep, I know. Really though, they’ve been amazing and I’m completely comfortable stating my opinions and concerns to this group.
After the reflection session, Julian, Naomi, Lauren and I hung out in our room to watch South Africa play in the Confederation Cup. Throughout the game, we were having a discussion about race in SA vs. in Germany vs. in the States. The one message that really hit home for me during the conversation came from Julian, when he said, “I didn’t know what racism was until I came here, to South Africa.” It was an interesting dynamic we had going, with German, African American, Arab/Muslim, and Southern US sides all playing in. Unfortunately, I have come to include that racism, in some form or another, exists globally. The difference comes in how the issue is dealt with among other countries, societies, and even individuals. Everyone is a little racist, let’s be real. I mean listen to the Avenue Q song (shoutout to Ella Lipin.) It’s human nature to associate characteristics according to appearance, whether you’re looking at skin color, body physique, accent, dress, style, smile, whatever. Racism is always an issue, but what I’m still trying to figure out is how we should be dealing with it since these differences are never, ever going to disappear.
Ukuthula,
Lynn
No comments:
Post a Comment