This past week was very interesting for me as I
got tasked with a huge role for Africa Unite. My supervisor knew I had an interest in Human Resources and
disclosed to me that we were in need of a volunteer driver (with stipend) for
our organization. They tasked me and another intern, Dorcas, with the job of
interviewing the candidates with the most relevant experience. We posted the ad
on GumTree.com, which is essentially the South African Craigslist. Within
20 minutes we had over 20 applicants with people emailing and calling us
nonstop. It saddened me because it showed how desperate people are for jobs
even when they’ll only be making an extremely small amount. We ended up having
to take the post down early because we were sent over 70 CV’s in one day.
However after doing the first interview with our supervisor, Dorcas and I
interviewed about 15 candidates, which was interesting because we are both
young women with accents that reflect we aren’t from South Africa. For some
people it was easy for them to respect us and our authority within the
organization. For others it was a bit more difficult so they were flat out rude
to us, with sexist undertones, and didn’t take our interview seriously. Safe to
say they didn’t get the job!
Nevertheless after 3 days of hard work we finally found the right candidate and our supervisor even let us hire him. This is was a cool experience, as I know if we were in America I’m not even sure they’ll let us join an interview let alone hire someone. It really showed me how much my organization trusts and values my opinion; I’m just hoping we made the right decision!
Besides the fun at work it was a chilled weekend. I went to a karaoke bar with some of my friends and at first we were nervous because it appeared to be an older crowd. There was another American crew there who actually knew one of Meg's friends! But obviously as this is Cape Town everyone could sing besides us Americans! Nevertheless I still forced Collette to jump on stage with me and sing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen which I had a blast doing! It was a lot a fun and definitely became one of my favorite experiences here.
I also went to the World of Birds,
which is similar to a zoo and has a lot more animals than just birds. I got to
play with monkeys and have them crawl all over my head and watch penguins get
fed in addition to seeing beautiful birds and all sorts of animals. My favorite
was probably the owls because they had amazingly bright eyes and were some of
the most mystical creatures I’ve ever encountered. Although when I was leaving
I did realize I actually don’t like birds too much, while I admire how free
they are they scare the crap out of me!
Overall it was a nice week where I
didn’t do much but did a lot of reflecting on my time here.
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