Internship Blog: Abraham Kim Post #4

A Week Remains 

Told you I was terrible at blogging. Two months later (already!), my work is finished.
Bright Kids Uganda, the children’s home that I’ve been interning with, has about 100 children now and provides food, shelter, and an education for all kids. In order to have funds for this, they do receive donations majorly from the States, Canada, and UK, but they also have income generating projects. So in addition to the already existing projects, I wanted to bring in rabbits into the mix.

I built a 3 roomed rabbit hutch and a 2 roomed rabbit hutch. I taught the kids, warden, and matron what to feed it, how often, and how to breed and handle the rabbits. I started with 3 rabbits. The two roomed hutch will be used for the baby rabbits. The kids named the whitest female rabbit Snow White. Then the other female, Cinderella. Lastly, they named the male rabbit… Abraham.

Internship Blog: Abraham Kim Post #3

I was walking through Baito Market (an outdoor market where they sell anything from seasonal vegetable, fruit, fish (dried and fresh), and other meats to selling appliances and other random things you could need). In the vegetable section, where I was surrounded by green bell peppers, watermelons, cabbage, tomatoes, and onions, there were these stones, also for sale. I confusedly looked at them and asked the lady what these were for. She looked at me. She understood me, but she didn’t respond. I asked again, and she smiled but bit her tongue. Another lady selling vegetables behind me laughed and told me the stones were for pregnant women. It was pretty interesting so I continued with my questions as this lady was much more comfortable in talking about it. This stone is traditional medicine for pregnant women and they stir the stone in water to let it dissolve and the woman drinks it. Apparently it lessens the pain of giving birth. The lady continues and says the stone has lots of minerals and tells me to try it. Well, I didn’t want to buy a full stone that I can’t really use, so I asked the first lady if I could test it, just take a lick or something, and she decided to break off a small piece.



I licked it and didn’t taste like anything so I decided to keep it as a souvenir. I brought it home and left it on the table and since power went out and dinner was late, my ‘maid’ (it’s weird calling her my maid but she cleans my room and cooks my food) brought me my food to my room for the first time and sees the stone. She laughs and starts asking me questions as to why I have this stone. I tell her I just want to take it home as a souvenir and she quietly looks at me for a while and then asks, “Who is the pregnant woman?”

Disclaimer: No women were impregnated

Internship Blog: Abraham Kim Post #2

With no surprise....

My first post in Uganda is about food. Most of the dishes are very similar to Zambia’s dishes. Most of the fruit are also the same. However, I could not be more wrong thinking that there was such a place that had more bananas than Zambia. The number of trucks carrying charcoal in Zambia equated the number of trucks carrying bananas in Uganda, and if you don’t know how many trucks of charcoal there were in Zambia, let’s see… In a small town, you might see about ten trucks. I guess that doesn’t really help either since most of you don’t know what I mean as in a small town, but you sort of get the idea. TONS of bananas.

However, that isn’t the highlight of this food post. The first day of being in Uganda, it was impossible to not notice these huge spiky looking things hanging from trees. I thought to myself, these can’t be edible. They are so huge with an oblong shape. These are Jackfruits.


(In my compound)

It was my first time seeing and hearing of such fruit, but it’s grown in most tropical areas including other countries in Central Africa, India, Bangladesh (it’s their national fruit), and other Southeast Asian countries, and I am SO glad I tried it.

The inside of a jackfruit (Google image)

The texture was strange yet the taste was sweet. No matter how much I thought of which other fruit it reminded me of, I couldn’t think of any. It was like a mixture of a melon, pear, and I don’t even know.

How it’s served (Google image)

Once I got internet (during the 2nd day), one of the first things I did was look up Jackfruits and it actually fell under the same category as mulberries. WHAT? I don’t see the connection AT ALL considering the taste, appearance in both fruit and tree size, and leaves. Well, it’s Wikipedia so it must be accurate. It also taught me that Jackfruits are very nutritious. It’s a good source of protein, Vitamin C, and Iron. As much as I love meat, I might be okay with just eating Jackfruits all day.
I had it with every supper so far except today. After such a fun-packed day, what a sad way to end it.

Internship Blog: Abraham Kim Post #1

New Blog (Again)

I’m terrible with journals. I am worse with blogs. This is my 3rd blog and the average number of posts for my previous two is probably 3 posts. The name of the blog didn’t help either. It had always been “Abein[country]” and so there was always going to be an end to those blogs since I eventually came back home. So, hopefully with this one, I can blog about all my adventures no matter where I am.

So where will I be next? In T-30 hours, I will be on a 54 hour trip. That includes all the time changes and the 13 hour layover in Dubai, and so the flight time is probably around 30 hours. Well, eventually, some time on Thursday June 4, I will have arrived in Entebbe, Uganda: my new home for the next two months.

What will I be doing? Work. I wish I was vacationing and seeing all the beauties of Uganda. I’ve never been to Uganda, but I know there are gorillas, guerrillas, and a lake. I wish I could see what more Uganda has, and I do know there’s a lot more. While I was in Zambia for the Peace Corps, prior to arriving, I knew … nothing about Zambia. Some people know at least Victoria Falls, but I knew nada. However, while living there for a while, there were hidden gems that I would LOVE to go back in a heartbeat. Uganda definitely has these and I really want to find them. However, I’ll be there for work.

As boring as work sounds, I could not be more excited to be surrounded by happy children playing silly games (which of course I love) and eating corn porridge. Not sure what it’s called in Uganda but nshima in Zambia, nsima in Malawi, bop in South Africa, Ugali in Kenya and Tanzania, you get the idea.

I’ve rambled a lot without answering exactly what I will be doing. I plan to monitor and evaluate income generating projects at the orphanage. The organization, Bright Kids Uganda (BKU), have sponsored children for schooling for a while now and these are children who were saved from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), orphaned, or vulnerable from abusive families or families who could not financially support them. Now, BKU has nearly 100 children at their orphanage and they need a sustainable source of income. So, a few years back they started some initiatives with the help of volunteers, including several from my own graduate school (Graduate School of Public and International Affairs), and started a mini-supermarket, chicken poultry, microloans, and other small businesses. BKU also received a grant that will allow some of these projects to be expanded or completed and I will be following up on these projects. In addition, I hope to introduce a new income generating activity: raising rabbits. I did a bit of this during my service in Zambia and since rabbits are beneficial, cheap, and easy to breed, I hope to bring this into the mix of their projects.
All of that in two months. I wish I had more time, but I’ll just have to make the best of it.

Meet the GSPIA Summer Internship Bloggers!!

Summer is just around the corner, which means that our summer internship blogs will be back again soon!  Meet our bloggers:

Crystal Christophe - MPA, Public and Nonprofit Management
Amizade - Pittsburgh

RJ Susko - MPA, Urban & Regional Affairs
Borough of Castle Shannon - Pittsburgh

Mike Duane - MPA, Policy Research & Analysis
VoxUkraine - Kyiv, Ukraine

Topher Hoffman - MPA, Public & Nonprofit Management
New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene - New York City

Cynthia Caul - MID, Nongovernmental Organizations & Civil Society
City of Asylum- Pittsburgh

Anthony Griffith - MPIA, Security & Intelligence Studies
Allegheny County Sheriff's Office - Pittsburgh

Luke West - MID, Human Security
Daya Center for Peace - Bangalore, India

Abraham Kim - MID, Nongovernmental Organizations & Civil Society
Bright Kids Uganda - Kampala, Uganda

Qianyu Mo - MPA, Urban Affairs & Planning
Local Government Academy, Churchill Borough - Pittsburgh

Ann Kaufman - MPIA, Security & Intelligence Studies
Misericordia University - Dallas, PA
10th Congressional District of PA, Congressman Tom Marino - Williamsport, PA 




Tyler Dandrea - MPIA, Security & Intelligence Studies
US Senator for NC Richard Burr - Washington DC

We're looking forward to following along on their adventures this summer....stay tuned for upcoming posts! 

RealStart Internship Post

Julianne Norman, MPIA-HS, 2014
Alison Waterson, MID-NGOCS, 2014

Hello out there!  Our names are Julianne and Ally and we spent six weeks of our summer performing a program evaluation for a non profit (RealStart) in George, South Africa. George is a picturesque seaside town located about 4 hours east of Cape Town in a region called the Western Cape, and sits right on the coast of the Indian ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 George is a relatively small town by South Africa standards, with a population of 120,000. Like the rest of South Africa, it is incredibly diverse and unequal with large affluent golf resorts backing onto poverty stricken townships.

 

 

 

We arrived in George on Thursday, May 16^th, after 48 hours of travelling, two upgraded first class tickets, one ripped pair of jeans and one coke stained pair of leggings…and one lost bag. All three of our suitcases managed to make it across three continents, yet somehow the journey from Johannesburg to George was too much of a stretch. Here, finding a lost bag is like trying to track a tadpole in a large pond.  All of the bags have labels on them, but no one knows where they are.  After numerous phone calls with the typical response, “um, we’ll look for it” or “let me ask my friend who works in the airport” (we know what that really means), and a day of sharing clothes, we finally decided to head out to the airport and wait there until they located the bag. They told us they had heard nothing of the bag since their last employee had called earlier that morning.  Their suggestion was wait for the next flight from Jo-burg landing in George in 15 minutes and see if it had appeared with the luggage. We waited for the flight and then watched all of the luggage filter through and no bag.  Then, Julianne looked across the room and low and behold her bag was sitting in the corner of the room...just chillin’.

A little bit about RealStart – RealStart is a South African based non-profit which focuses on the holistic development of impoverished young people. They currently run a year-long youth development program across two campuses, with the hope of expanding the program throughout the country. They also have a number of other exciting projects in the pipeline. I (Alison) have been affiliated with RealStart for a number of years and have known its founder for five years. This was Julianne’s first interaction with the organization.

The first week of our evaluation consisted of us finding out a little more about RealStart and what it was they wanted us to achieve with our evaluation. As non-experts in the field, we spent copious hours sitting outside in the sun reading a program evaluation textbook one of our professors had given us.

We soon discovered that we did not have enough data (RealStart is only 3 years old) to do a quantitative evaluation and thus had to focus on a more qualitative one. The next few days involved writing up questionnaires and contacting as many stakeholders as we possibly could in order to set up interviews to ask them questions about the organization and their relationship with it.

Our next blog post will be coming soon...check in for the next installment, which may contain a crazy adventure or two!