Mary wanting to apply what she's learning as she becomes more open & flexible

This weekend was Human Rights Training Weekend. Even though it was my internship (Africa Unite) that helped sponsor it, I didn't know what to expect at all. It turned out to be such a great experience! Getting to know the other activists from both South Africa and other countries in Africa was the best and most meaningful part for me. I loved learning about other countries and hearing things from different points of view. For one activity, there was a list of basic human rights and we had to list groups of people that were most marginalized or deprived of that right the most. People in the group I was in came from different countries so it was cool hearing the various answers to these. One thing I noticed for this activity was that the Americans would mention LGBT a lot, while the Africans didn't so much. We all talked about this and were told that LGBT wasn't as big an issue or talked about much in Africa. I think it's just more taboo. I thought that was quite interesting because at least in our generation in the US, LGBT rights come up a lot and it's more well known as a social issue and often marginalized group. So it was pretty fascinating to hear differences like that, and I felt like I wanted to research and jump into a bunch of different social issues that were brought up.

Overall, I loved getting to know new people this weekend. Many are activists in South Africa or other countries around the world, so they have cool ideas, stories, and experiences to bring to the table. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming too. I'm glad we had this weekend and although some people from what I heard seemed to learn more or get more out of the weekend than others, I hope we all can find a way to use the info to take action in the future or at least make something out of whatever we experienced.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was the nature of my internship at Africa Unite. Many of the tasks I have been doing and things I've been involved in are spontaneous and random almost. It's not like what I'm used to in the US where I'm more directly told what tasks to do, what's expected of me, what's going on in general, etc. I think this will be a good growing experience for me as I will have to learn to be more flexible and go with the flow. This is hard for me as I like knowing what's going on and having everything organized, understood, and planned, but it will be good for me to learn to adapt and work well in this different work environment. I even wrote about becoming more flexible and open to things in my pre-departure entry, so I hope I can really accomplish this.