Internship

My internship started by my visit to the office which is in a small village suburb of Mombasa call Mikindani. After meeting the staff and hearing 13 names of which I now only remember one which is victor, I was introduced to what exactly the NGO does. It is now four days later and I think I am beginning to get what it is they do. The organization is called Hope Worldwide, they are HIV prevention and testing facility, they are also a youth center/ school for life-skill classes such as computer and dress making. They are a community outreach and gender sensitivity training facility. They are also about a million other things. It took for days to understand this because of the fact that I understand a little less than half of anything anyone says. Also because none of this is written anywhere as most of the activities are mish mashed together and very loosely defined. Because of my difficulty grasping the nature of the place or perhaps in preparation for this I was invited to observe some of the programs in action to better understand. This amounted to sitting in a shell gas station for two days, where as I sat by the gleaming hub caps and overcalled workers, learned many, many things. The first of which is that sitting in a Kenyan gas station for 7 hours you WILL get burned in the shade with only a 15 proof sun block. Perhaps I should explain. Part of the VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) HIV project is the work program. This work programs partners my NGO with a company, say Shell gas stations, and then my NGO sets up a tent and a small testing facility at said business and offers the counseling/testing to the workers. So along with my grand education on sunburn and the fascinating science of fixing a tire, I learned also how to test for HIV and the general counseling and referral techniques of the NGO Councilors. As there was a good amount of time between costumers there was plenty of time to talk about the NGO programs with the two female testers. My now extensive knowledge included most of the above information on Hope worldwide as well as some very helpful hints about the Kenyan dating scene. And on the next episode of ‘this stuffs to crazy to make up’…..