It is hard to believe that in three weeks my SIT program will be wrapping up and my semester abroad will come to an end, but me being abroad will not. I am so excited to finally share the news: I am taking the semester off and accepting an internship in the Philippines. On January 15th I will fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Manila, Philippines to start an internship under the Filipino Senator Ed Angara. I will be working directly in a program called Oh My Gulay (OMG for short). OMG stresses the importance of proper nutrition and eating healthily but also teaches children how to grow their own vegetables by establishing school gardens. I will be stationed in the Aurora Province co-monitoring five different primary schools. Every day I will be teaching children the importance of proper nutrition through lecture, games, and working together in the school gardens. OMG is literally changing children's lives. 25% of Filipino children are malnourished– this staggering figure is what first inspired Senator Angara to create an organization addressing malnourishment. What Senator Angara has done, bringing attention to a major problem and fixing it through education, is exactly the sort of work that I would someday like to find myself in. This internship will not only give me invaluable teaching experience, but also grants me the opportunity to work with government and other officials and learn the cornerstones to a non-profit.
Everything is in place, my return tickets have been changed, tickets to the Philippines have been bought, my status at Bowdoin for the 2012 spring semester is "not here" and today I got the best news– I will be funded for my work in the Philippines. I have a grant from the Mitchell Institute that will serve as a living stipend while I am in the Philippines and also offer assistance with some of the airfare. This was great news as the OMG work is unpaid. I am forever grateful for the financial assistance from the Mitchell Institute, as well as all the other opportunities they offer to their scholars.
So since my internship starts in mid-January I will have a month to relax and travel around. A majority of my time will be spent in HCMC with my homestay family. On December 14th, I will fly with them to Hanoi where one of their cousins is getting married (Vietnamese wedding take two!) and on the 17th return to HCMC to take care of my Philippines visa and extending my Vietnamese visa. I will live with my homestay family until everything is good to go with visas, then I will travel to Thailand, maybe Cambodia and on January 10th or 11th back to Vietnam to go to Phu Quoc island with my program assistant Vy. Well, all these are the tentative plans. Everything is still up in the air and could very possibly change. The only date set in stone is January 15th when I fly out to the Philippines. Schools let out the last week of March so I will have one week to travel around and see more of the country, like Puerto Princesa, one of the new 7 Wonders of the World– along with Ha Long Bay. I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I have already been to two of the new 7 Wonders, (Table Mountain in South Africa & Ha Long Bay)... if I have the opportunity to see a third I am not going to let that pass. I fly back to the states on April 7th.
Obviously this was a really big decision to make since it meant not seeing my friends and family for seven months, missing a semester at Bowdoin, and also a ski season. But I honestly am so incredibly happy with my decision. I have been contemplating taking a semester off for awhile so it feels great to finally put my ideas into action. I guess just after the experiences I have had in Vietnam I am not ready to go back to America and settle back into my routine at Bowdoin. There is so much more I want to do and see when I am over here. The support I have received from my friends and family has just reinforced that I have made the right decision. I think my mom said it best, "Life at college or anywhere, can get stagnant, and part of what makes us all unique is the challenges, risks we take, what we learn from them, good or bad. It is always easy to do what is comfortable, and what we are familiar with, but often those off the normal track experiences make us who we really are! You are certainly getting those." Amen mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment