Down And Dirty

Dear Blogger,

So down to this internship business.

I'm working at a place called Sunlight Africa Community Center, an after-school program for children of African immigrants, or children who are African immigrants themselves. I basically tutor them, mentor them, and I'm eventually going to organize workshops for them.

It's mostly a fun job, so far. I like helping the children with their homework and talking to them. (One kid, who I really like, he's learning to play the harmonica which I think is really really cool. I'm trying to get him to listen to Bob Dylan, partially so that I'll help spark his interest in music, and partially so that it will blow his mind he'll become a world famous musician because of me.) So far, it's been a decent internship.

I was really discouraged, though, after my first week of working there. The program itself was really disorganized. Meaning that if you put fifteen children, ages 7-14 in a tiny room for four hours, don't let them out but to use the bathroom, give them no physical outlet, and keep telling them to shut up-- they're going to be scratching the paint off the wall, they'll be so desparate. I was terribly upset with this, partially because I don't like yelling at kids, especially in a situation like this one, where it doesn't seem to particularly be their fault. (Kids do need space, everyone knows that.)

But mostly, I was disappointed with the organization itself. My boss told me that I would be doing more interacting with the children, on a personal level. I would be learning about them and their experiences as immigrants or children of immigrants. Being that this was the reasons I took the position, I was very disappointed that my boss would essentially lie to me. Whether or not she lied to me, though, is questionable. Sunlight Africa does a summer program which sounds more like what I thought I would be doing, where there's more interaction with the children on a personal level. And I might have been a little impatient with the program itself at that point, because this last week I got to know a lot of the students more personally, and I plan to learn more about their experiences through the workshops.

Other than that, things are going well at my internship. I like the people I work with. (I'll go into detail on that some other time.) The only problems left over are the problems I need to resolve with The Chicago Center. I'm still coming short on the time requirement. (24 hours a week, I'm only working twelve so far.) My advisor wanted me to work at another immigrant place in the morning, but that just seems to demanding of my schedule... so I just need to talk to him. I'll take care of that.

Regards,

Steve