Recap on my last week in Mchinji
1. It sunk in that I was leaving.
2. It sunk in that I had a lot of work left to do.
3. I panicked a little.
4. I calmed down.
5. I got to down work.
5a. At one point, I was going to take a motorbike out by myself, but it was deemed unsafe for me to drive alone. Not for any external safety reasons, just because I was clearly a novice and too erratic on the bike. I'm sure the show of the azungu doing (poor) laps around the flagpole outside the office was a sight.
5b. I hired a taxi, rode more public transport, and at one point, got a ride from D, the other intern who was in town representing the funder with dedicated transportation, to where I needed to go.
6. I ended up getting a lot of work done.
7. An impending departure made my own limitations clear and I started going easier on myself about not getting to do everything I wanted to.
7a. I feel like I had just hit my stride here last weekend and now it was suddenly time to leave. I could easily have spent another two weeks to a month to dig into the work I was doing to have experienced more and get a better product. When I got here eight weeks seemed like an eternity; now it seems like I just got here and I'm not quite ready (personally or professionally) to leave.
8. Six and seven were directly facilitated by a good talk to C, whom I have only spoken with twice since she left.
9. I had that I-just-took-my-last-final feeling after my last meeting on Friday afternoon. I realized that one some level, I was getting some closure and wrap up from the whole experience, a cosmic sign that it's the right time to go.
10. I left (see next post).
1. It sunk in that I was leaving.
2. It sunk in that I had a lot of work left to do.
3. I panicked a little.
4. I calmed down.
5. I got to down work.
5a. At one point, I was going to take a motorbike out by myself, but it was deemed unsafe for me to drive alone. Not for any external safety reasons, just because I was clearly a novice and too erratic on the bike. I'm sure the show of the azungu doing (poor) laps around the flagpole outside the office was a sight.
5b. I hired a taxi, rode more public transport, and at one point, got a ride from D, the other intern who was in town representing the funder with dedicated transportation, to where I needed to go.
6. I ended up getting a lot of work done.
7. An impending departure made my own limitations clear and I started going easier on myself about not getting to do everything I wanted to.
7a. I feel like I had just hit my stride here last weekend and now it was suddenly time to leave. I could easily have spent another two weeks to a month to dig into the work I was doing to have experienced more and get a better product. When I got here eight weeks seemed like an eternity; now it seems like I just got here and I'm not quite ready (personally or professionally) to leave.
8. Six and seven were directly facilitated by a good talk to C, whom I have only spoken with twice since she left.
9. I had that I-just-took-my-last-final feeling after my last meeting on Friday afternoon. I realized that one some level, I was getting some closure and wrap up from the whole experience, a cosmic sign that it's the right time to go.
10. I left (see next post).
Labels: azungu, malawi, mchinji, transitions
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