Jesse reflects on short internship at Local Dreamers
I’m Jesse, 23 years old and a Sociology student. For a duration of six weeks I combined volunteer work with an internship. Besides doing the regular projects, I conducted a research proposal about how to handle behavioral disorders at the soccer school of Local Dreamers. Before I leave Local Dreamers I would like to look back on my time here for one last time.
By: Jesse de Bruijn
Finally boarded the third and last plane, getting me to Quito. Due to some unexpected medical issues I had to prospone my flight twice. So two months and a few days later I was stuck with a short term-booked flight allowing me to get a glimp of Germany and Panama before reaching Ecuador. Normally I don’t make many expectations in my head, I just go. Everything will turn out just fine. Because of my delayed departure and lots of free time, I did make expectations this time. While waiting for my adventure, I thought like, what if what’s ahead of me isn’t worth waiting for?
Communication
Waking up after a late arrival, I was excited about all new things ahead of me. Before walking upstairs to meet my host family, I thought about all the new experiences I would be richer touching my bed again later this day. No same same, everything is going to be different from normal.
A warm welcome along a comprehensive breakfast made the beginning of my day. Not speaking English and not speaking Spanish turns out to be a bad combination. Most of the, well I can hardly call it actual conversations, ended in long lasting smiles. Next stop, the office of Local Dreamers.
When I was getting up to get out of the bus, I forgot leaving my phone on my lap and while standing up it fell on the ground. Bending over for my phone, the busdriver decided it was time to hit the break big time. This meeting of circumstances made me do an unexpected rollover against the legs of a women standing before me. I got a lot of weird looking faces. I responded, once again, with smiling. I decided smiling was going to be my strategy for handling awkward situations from now on.
Everything at Local Dreamers was nice from the beginning. The first day was mostly about settling down. How is Local Dreamers functioning, how is the communication and what kind of tasks has everyone? Communication is the key and everyone is taking individually responsabilities but we make it work together. I quickly felt comfortable. I got a feeling my time at Local Dreamers was going to be real nice.
The projects
After the first week it felt like time was tricking me. How did I go so fast from week two to six? The saying ‘time flies when you are having fun’ proved itself worthy once again. My weeks were filled by doing projects, working on study assignments, slurping fishbowls and exploring Ecuador. I had the honour of teaching English to some adult locals. They were really sweet and motivated. One thing I noticed was that being a teacher, you will be taken very seriously. Whatever you say, they will assume its true.
I remember one time a student asking a really good question about the usage of prepositions. So good, I didn’t have an answer right away. Since it was my first or second lesson, and thinking I had to make a knowledgeable impression, I made up my own rule. Without hesitating, they wrote it down in their notebooks. Till this day my class thinks you have to use the preposition “to” in the sentence: “This is the key to my room” because the action of opening a door is a movement, you are moving the key into the lock. This is absolutely nonsense. Its because there is an indication of something granting access into another thing. For making up, from then on I prepared my lessons and grammer extensively and taught them as much as possible.
Colombia
While writing this small column, my internship already ended for a week. Tomorrow Colombia will be explored. In advance, I made plans for this time before my departure to Colombia. I didn’t carry out one single plan. Just kept spending my days at the office and attending the projects. I am leaving my short internship with mixed feelings; everything about Local Dreamers is nice but I heard the Colombian women or the most beautiful of South-America.
All experiences together made my time here worth waiting for, no doubt about that. Muchas gracias to everyone for being part of my time at Local Dreamers.
© Local Dreamers, Jesse reflects on short internship at Local Dreamers.
