Great Expectations and Great Realities: In which is related the mid-internship reflection, and other ruminations worth relating

I’ve been writing this post for two weeks now. Two weeks! I started jotting things down during our mid-term FSD retreat in Tola. I continued when I returned to Masaya and opened the official mid-term envelop prompt. So this post has been scattered throughout my personal journal, my FSD journal, a Word document, and my brain. I’ve finally collected everything together and clumped related thoughts to cobble together some kind of rhyme and reason. It still remains very vignette like, and I’ve decided to keep it that way.

So without further ado, I present my mid-fellowship reflection.

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Great Expectations and Great Realities

 

Many of the interns, myself included, granted there are only four of us… have stated and all agreed that we would recommend this internship (and with FSD in particular) for many reasons, that are not listed on FSD’s website:

• Yes, if you’ve never really been frustrated professionally; o sea (or rather), how to be OK and work through the frustration you will feel, especially working non-profit/within NGOS/within different cultures

• What “proactivity” truly means

• The difference between theory and practice of service and ABCD

  • It’s not all sunshine and roses. Not even the expected challenges are how they were expected.

• What flexibility and adaptability really mean

   

 

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I didn’t expect to love Nicaragua conditionally. Me encanta Nicaragua, with the exception of:

-the machismo

-and the flies as well! I’m still, unfortunately, pretty neurotic about them.

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I didn’t expect this condition/conclusion:

I will return to Nicaragua, arms and heart open and legs running, only if I have another travel partner with me. Ideally a male. Right now, where I am and where the country and culture are, it’s just too difficult to be a lone female here.

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I didn’t expect machismo to affect me, bother me, and drain me so much. At this point, I’m wondering if I’m just being a “special snowflake” about it?

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I didn’t expect to truly recognize, understand, and appreciate my privilege and suerte (luck) of being a United States born and raised citizen with hard working parents that honestly made and all the difference for me.

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It’s silly, but I didn’t expect to feel as tired, drained, unrested, and stressed as I do. I slept 10 hours the other night, and I was still so tired mentally and physically. I almost constantly feel like there is a weight and cloud on and around my brain. Como un casco (like a helmet).

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Above all the independence of my time in Nicaragua and my internship has met and exceeded my expectations.

 

Independent Expectations, an acrostic poem

I am a small, small part of a possible something.

Needs dominate most everyone’s vision.

Don’t stop communicating. Either though moving (communicating with the world); thinking (communicating with yourself); writing (communicating with yourself and an unknown/audience/outside reader); or talking (communicating with people).

Evade falling and staying in a the Negativity Swamp.

Proactivity is not easy. It’s difficult. It takes time and sometimes additional overhead and setup, but it’s necessary.

Expect failure (small and sometimes significant), but expect to learn from these failures.

‘Nowing how to navigates yourself and among others is critical.

Do expect for time to move slowly and quickly at the same time. It’s odd, contradictory, but true.

“Eye-ronically” ;), independence sometimes depends on other people and other things.

Not everything and every moment should be independent.

Take time to dance, enjoy, and explore by yourself a little!

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I’ve definitely been challenged as a student of public health and medicine, a non-native speaker, and even as a young female in a machismo country. In these areas of my life, expectations of these challenges existing = reality.

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I didn’t expect my understanding of NGOs and public health to develop holistically/360 degrees (the beautiful, the good, the bad, and the ugly). I expected to just fall in love more linearly with the two, but I think the understanding I now have is more complete and actually better for my future as an agent and professional in these two fields.

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This one is perhaps the most ambiguous expectation. I hope to explore and explain it further, perhaps near the end of my internship or after its conclusion.

I didn’t expect the lucha/struggle/juxtaposition between being a Loewenstern fellow and being an FSD intern. I’m glad and much happier having choosien to prioritize being a Loewenstern fellow.