The Study part of study abroad.

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So I definitely wrote this a week ago...and I have no idea what happened to it.

If I were an interesting person I would probably have more interesting things to say. Our days still seem jam packed and fascinating to me, but then when you think about it they are pretty routine.

Monday I started my internship, which is at an organization called Catholic AIDS Action. I've been there two days, and still not entirely sure on what I'll be doing. I spent more time riding in the combi to and from internships than actually at mine on monday I believe. But as soon as I got there I was told to answer phones in the office while everyone went to a meeting. This was bad because a) I didn't know a single person b) i can neither say or spell anyone's name. so i said that everyone was out, and was basically the worst receptionist ever. Sitting in the office was my ideal way to spend the first day, but it was the first day after all, and that's where they needed me.

Wednesday I went back for round two and right off the bat one of the women who works there wanted to get me drunk off of home brewed beer. I indulged her a cup for the cultural experience, ha, but managed to avoid having to drink the whole thing. It was milky and grainy, and I would have never thought it was beer if I hadn't been told. I spent the majority of my day getting tested for HIV. There is a free testing center at the organization, and when my supervisor asked me if I'd ever been tested and then why not, I had no reason why I hadn't. Thinking it would be pretty hypocritical to work at a place where you are constantly telling people to get tested, yet never having gone through it myself, I decided to go for it. I also had nothing else to do and 4 hours to kill. I'm so happy that I did it because it definitely puts what the people are going through in perspective. Even though I know that I was there just to understand the process better and knew I was fine- it was still a pretty terrifying ordeal at times. Just sitting in the waiting room with 8 other silent people and realizing that given the statistics (the rate is somewhere around 20% here) somebody in the room was probably not going to find out good news. Just to get tested you have to first go through counseling...going over your past, your knowledge of the disease and what you would do if the test comes back positive. And they pretty much manage to scare you to death, that somehow you do have it. The whole process is completely anonymous- you give them a fake name in case you lose the number they call you by, you sign the papers with your thumbprint and the results are never written, just told to you.

So there is no good pattern yet, but one of the main parts of the center is a soup kitchen and afterschool program for orphans and vulnerable children. I was told that starting Monday, I would run small group counseling sessions for the kids. So the thought of that is super exciting that I'll really get to do something and a little intimidating that they trust me with that.

Classes started Tuesday, and let me tell you 4 straight hours of class is going to be rough. We only have each class one day a week from 9-1:00 each day. We also throw in a class for our internship and some language courses. We do take a couple of breaks during the class, but my attention span struggles with 1 hour and 15 minute classes at UNC, so we shall see. We started learning Herero, one of the languages for our rural homestay in October. There is much less guarentee that people there will speak English, so we're trying to pick up on the essentials.

Today we leave for another homestay. I'm excited but at the same time, we've just gotten settled here. So maybe it is good to go before we get too comfortable. All of these families are in and around Windhoek, so it should be really great to get to know people in the area. It will be interesting, because we still have classes....which are held in our living room. So we won't be staying at the house, but during the days coming back for classes. We were given specific instructions to bathe at our homestays not at the CGE house, because otherwise our families think that we are dirty/are afraid that we don't bathe because we think their water is dirty. I thought that was a pretty funny instruction. I think we're with this family for 10 days, and this time we're all alone- which should be a big change from the four of us all living with Winnie.

Other than that we've been staying pretty busy agonizing over the failure of our wireless internet, realizing we're ridiculous for that, exploring the city, watching movies, hanging around the pool, occassionally taking a quick late night freezing dips and being regulars at the hostel/bar a couple houses down. All in all it's been a pretty good week in Windhoek, I love it here- but I think I'm a much bigger fan of the abroad part than the study part.

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