This internship is nothing like what I expected. I am shocked and amazed at all the fantastic things I was fortunate enough to experience, such as living in another country, learning another language, and travelling.
In Manaus we have run into our fair share of difficult situations. With Ifam and Prosamim we had bad luck with timing, both organizations are extremely busy and do not have the capacity to involve us in their projects. The first 3 months were quite a shock because it was difficult to create and negotiate some tasks to work on and some research to collect, with projects or contacts that never seemed to work out.
On top of the work problems, Manaus is a difficult place to live if you do not have expensive air conditioning, a car, and oodles of money. The bus is also difficult because there is no map, no names for bus stops, hilariously the bus fares change often, and the bus system is not connected - you can only go to certain stops from certain bus stations. Luckily we have some good friends to give us the mindboggling secrets of the bus system.
From our apartment it takes about an hour depending on traffic to get into the city centre and then another 20 min walk of death in the blaring heat, which feels like a lifetime to get to the Ifam or Prosamim buildings. When we arrive at Ifam we have a nice chat with all our wonderful friends, have some lunch and then it’s time for the long journey home again! Moving around takes up a lot of time so we feel busy and exhausted without doing anything! But thankfully everything I was nervous about like bugs, heat, or illness did not turn out to be that big a deal, it takes time but I realized you can get used to anything.
Manaus is a very new partner site so it will take a lot of time and effort to develop more efficient future internships. I think the role of interns needs to be more defined, and Ifam will have to put more resources into meaningfully involving interns. Although I can see how these things will depend on timing and the availability of resources which can be fairly unpredictable. For example, we had some very bad luck with timing because the Mulheres Mil program is not running and preparations are slow, while Prosamim ran out of community events for us to participate in.
As the second interns in Manaus we were able to gather some useful research on our partner organizations which is very exciting because it can be used to develop future projects of international cooperation and community empowerment! We have also been successful at network building by meeting new contacts and important organizational leaders.
I did not realize how much work my previous volunteer internship involved on the part of my employer. I was trained several times regarding how to use systems and spreadsheets to organize information, people were available to answer my questions, interns were encouraged to sit in on meetings, and we were allowed to participate in many areas of program delivery. I now see that this internship in Manaus will require more involvement from Ifam but of course this will depend on timing and resources.
Previously I expected to create our own tasks and methods of gathering information, and this was certainly true but we were mostly dependent on the ability of Ifam and Prosamim to include us in their projects. We spent a lot of time trying to chase down meetings and people to let us know about projects, everyone is so busy with their own work that they found it difficult to involve us. So we had to adapt to be more patient and wait until there was an event or task to do. Everyone at Prosamim and Ifam are so welcoming and friendly, many people did the best they could to provide us with some organizational information despite being so busy.
So now after seeing the amazing work of the other interns in different locations, I am wondering how is an internship created? Perhaps there needs to be a specific job or area that has work to do. At Ifam and Prosamim we have no specific role or task so it was confusing for people to understand what we were doing. The reports and organizational research for Niagara College was the most important task for us because it was clearly defined, maybe Ifam could develop a similar project for interns to work on in the future. Because Ifam is a school and not an NGO there was not a lot of work for interns to participate in, however in the future there would definitely be more potential for professional French and English teachers here.
I am hopeful that future interns and projects will further develop partnerships with Manauara organizations because the people are so dedicated to innovative development programs. I gained some very unique international work experience that I am thrilled to use in upcoming cover letters and interviews! Personally, I feel more relaxed and flexible after our Brazilian adventures. There is a time to work, and a time to sip graviola juice on the beach. Só alegria!
