The city and beyond Get ready to go bananas. Would I ever have thought that there would be a bigger twist in the story? Absolutely not, but always delighted by and spiced with the surprises in my life. March turned out to be a rollercoaster after all. Except for the ambulance siren sound at least 5 times a day, the sound of silence around the world … Continue reading Internship in the eyes of a pandemic beholder
The city and beyond Two months in D.C. got me thinking that this capital city is very much like the capital of my home country, Ankara, Turkey. The flow of cars, people dressed up in formal wear going to work and leaving work around the same time, monuments and memorials, many government buildings, and offices have evoked the memories of my monotonous year in Ankara. … Continue reading Internship in the eyes of a Washingtonian
The city and beyond My second time in D.C. takes me back to the time when I first visited the city precisely ten years ago. The time when the weather was cold but my heart as immensely warm. I feel like the city hasn’t changed at all. Maybe, because the museums stayed in the same places? Voila! After the three-hour ride, I had my tourist … Continue reading Internship in the eyes of a tourist
On the 9th of August I attended an International Youth Day event organized by 4 organizations working on youth empowerment in Kenya, and funded by the EU. The theme of the event was “Nafasi Kwa Vijana” or “Safe spaces for youth”. The whole perfectly encapsulated my experience working in Mombasa for the last 13 weeks. It was hot, chaotic, partly inefficient but through it all … Continue reading A bittersweet symphony
2 months into my internship, I got to the part I had been waiting for the whole time- field trips. I was tasked with visiting 20 schools in 12 days, across 2 counties and across a 100 km radius. The project I was meant to observe is being implemented in 43 schools across Mombasa and Kwale. Since I was not conducting an evaluation of the … Continue reading Of field trips in far away places
Reflections from the first month in South Africa! Hello again! I’ve been in Jo’burg for about a month now, and the time has truly flown by! I’m working in the Research and Development Unit at the organization I’m interning with, but my supervisor was very clear about wanting to provide me with opportunities to do a “little bit of everything”, and she has definitely stayed … Continue reading Language, Literacy, and Lots of Learning
A little more than a month into my internship, and I now have a better idea of the ins and outs of the organization and how it functions. While work was slower during the month of Ramadan, things are slowly picking up post Eid, with all 15 people in the office each day. My first order of business had been aligning the literacy material developed … Continue reading Whose curriculum is it anyway?
The International Educational Development Program 